Only Make Believe
by andeemae
Summary: Instilling maximum amounts of guilt in children must be a course they teach all mothers, and Gale's pretty sure his mother must've been at the top of her class.-High School AU, interconnected one shots, added to as the feeling hits.
1. Always On My Mind

Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

**Always On My Mind**

"Sprint! Jog! SPRINT! SPRINT! SPRINT!"

So help her, if Madge hears Coach Oberst's harsh voice bark sprint one more time she was going to run straight out the gym door, to her car, and home to catch up on her soap operas. Forget her athletic credit hour, this was inhumane.

"I can't feel my legs," Delly wheezes. Her face is beet red, Madge is pretty sure she's only one day of cardio away from having a mini stroke.

"If Cartwright doesn't pick her butt up and move it, that'll be another two minutes,_ladies_!"

The group let out a collective groan, gave the now tearful Delly filthy looks.

"Come on Delly. One more minute," Madge urges her.

Katniss, who actually _likes_ the short running exercises, comes back at them from the opposite direction, looking a little annoyed. The only reason she wouldn't want another two minutes would be it would make her late to her after school job.

Chesney Shumard, winded and pale, shakes her head, hisses, "That girl isn't normal."

Madge huffs. Katniss is nice enough, she's been Madge's partner in several classes, but she's not exactly friendly. Madge is quiet, a little shy and slow to warm to new people, but Katniss' quiet is different. It's more the 'talk to me and you'll spend the rest of your life eating through a straw' kind of quiet. She has little patience for her classmates, which is easy to sympathize with, but unlike Madge, she doesn't seem to find the humor in the absurdity of her high school hell.

Instead of feeding into Chesney's sniping, Madge just shrugs and gives Delly another encouraging wave of her hand.

The timer is ticking down, almost to thirty seconds, when the door leading in from the track and field opens and the off-season boys spill in, sweaty, stinky, and in many cases, shirtless.

Pressley, one of Chesney's tagalongs, makes a noise, somewhere between a delighted scream and a squeal of horror, at the sight.

"Hawthorne has his shirt off," she rasps, her eyes fixed on the emerging group.

Madge doesn't care, really, she doesn't. Gale Hawthorne seems to hate her, because she lives in town, has good grades, is 'perfect'…if only he knew. He has some kind of affliction, though, where he takes his shirt off at the drop of a hat, so him naked from the waist up isn't an uncommon occurrence. She's certain that if he so much as got a drop of ketchup on one of the ratty shirts he wears he'd just rip it off rather than try and clean it like a normal person.

Still, his hair is wild from his run, he's actually _glistening._He doesn't look like the hot mess most of the girls do. Really, it would be a crime not to look.

Unfortunately, Pressley has little to no foot-eye coordination, trips over her own toes, sprawling out on the overly varnished gym floor, and taking most of the other girls down with her.

They all land in a heap, a nasty mish mash of sweat and Bath and Body Works spray, right in front of the incoming boys.

Coach Oberst is a mess, tears of laughter are leaking out her eyes, "God, what a bunch of hormonal gussies."

She's in such a good mood, watching her charges endure physical injuries always brightens her disposition, she lets them out early.

Katniss, one of only a handful not in the pile up, rolls her eyes at them before heading to the lockers, she has better things to do than check on her stupid classmates.

Madge pushes a whining Chesney off her leg and tries to push herself up. She sees someone striding toward her, it takes a second, but she realizes it's Gale. Probably going to kick her.

Before he can reach her though, someone hauls her up, back onto her feet.

"Upsy daisy, Madge."

Peeta is behind her. Once she's regained her balance, he turns to Chesney, offering her a hand. Madge glances back, sees Gale giving Peeta a dark look, probably upset he hadn't gotten the chance to stomp on Madge's hand, something she's certain he'd dearly love to do.

Turning back to Peeta, Madge grins, "My knight in shining spandex."

He bows a little.

Madge runs off to change, get out of her disgusting gym clothes and comb her tangled mess of hair. When she emerges, still a little sticky from the torture of Coach Oberst, Peeta is waiting, leaning against the opposite wall in his warm up sweats.

"Don't you have a match today?"

He nods, "Yeah, but we don't leave until three, so I figured I'd come and check on you. Make sure you weren't concussed."

His arm swings around her shoulder. They check her locker, retrieve her homework and toss in the books she doesn't need, then Peeta walks her out to her car.

"You gonna be okay driving?"

She rolls her eyes. Normally he drives her, not that she can't, she just isn't fond of driving, and he lives close, and she pays for gas so she isn't a total mooch. "I think I can handle it."

"Well," he gives her his most parental look, "text me when you get home."

"Yes, mother."

He laughs, stuffs his hands into his jacket and looks around, chewing his lip.

"So…Katniss didn't fall today."

_This again._

He had some weird crush on Katniss Everdeen. Why, Madge wasn't sure. Not that Katniss wasn't pretty, she was, and Peeta was Peeta. He was also the epitome of sweetness, held doors and offered to walk old ladies across the street, it just didn't match up with Katniss' consistently dour mood.

Madge wanted Peeta to be happy, she just wasn't sure Katniss could do that, despite what Peeta himself believed.

Madge snorts, "Peeta, she doesn't see boys, she just sees large humans."

Actually, Chesney was convinced Katniss wasn't even aware she was female until they put her in girls athletics.

Peeta laughs, shakes his head, "Well, maybe she'll notice this large human someday."

Madge laughs, "If that helps you sleep at night, Peeta."

With a grin, he nods, "It does." He checks his phone, "Gotta go."

Tapping her shoulder, he jogs off, back up to the school to meet up with the rest of the wrestling team.

Madge gets in her car, has the key out and is building herself up for the drive home when her phone vibrates with an incoming message.

_'Don't 4get the tulle in the home ec class need those swags finished asap_:p'

Madge groans, why hadn't Delly reminded her earlier, when she had Peeta and his muscle to help? And couldn't she just spell 'forget'?

Cursing Delly and her ability to trick people into doing things they _really_ didn't want to do, Madge gets out of her car and stomps back up to the school. She wasn't going to prom, she was only a sophomore, but somehow Delly had convinced her to help the flailing junior class out.

"They just can't get their act together," she'd given Madge her most dramatic sigh. "We have to give the seniors a good sendoff!"

Why, exactly, Madge owed the seniors anything, she didn't know, but Delly and her sighing and begging had worn her down. She was such a pushover. Now she was stuck making swags and decorating for the ungrateful jerks. They wouldn't even appreciate it.

She expects a few rolls of tulle, maybe a bolt, but what she gets is seven.

How many swags does she expect her to make? How does she even _make_ swags? She thought it was just tacked up. Apparently she was wrong. Or Delly was.

These would just barely fit in her car, and only if she rolled the windows in the backseat down.

Unhappily, Madge begins dragging a couple of them. She doesn't even care if she messes up the end.

She's made it out of the room, down the hall, to the breezeway between the buildings when something catches on the bolt under her right arm. Irritated, she doesn't have time for snags, she turns and finds Gale, his foot holding the tulle to the ground.

"Having a little bit of trouble there, All-Star?"

She jerks the bolt, hoping he'll lose his balance and fall on his smug face, but he just stays in place, smirking at her.

"Some boyfriend you got there. Didn't even help you with these big, bulky fabrics."

Madge closes her eyes. _What is he talking about?_

Without thinking, she's tired and sticky and she just wants to go home, she sighs, "Yeah, well, Devon Sawa and I broke up. We couldn't handle the age difference."

He tilts his head, a bit like a dog trying to figure out where a ball went. Clearly he's missed her reference.

"Devon Sawa, you know, Casper…the friendly ghost?"

As in nonexistent.

Hadn't he gone to the same school as her? Been subjected to the same seven movies for inside recess as her? How did he not know this?

Granted, Madge's old babysitter had watched Casper so much they'd worn out the VHS, probably broke the tape on Casper and Kat's dance, so maybe she remembered it a little better than most.

Gale grunts, looks a little disgusted, "I meant Mellark."

Madge's nose scrunches up. Peeta? "Peeta isn't my boyfriend."

He's like a brother, or a cousin, or some combination of the two.

Peeta and she had been friends since preschool, field trip partners, best friends. He knew all the bitter details of Madge's family struggles and she knew about his parents' very ugly divorce. They leaned on each other.

But boyfriend? That would be creepy.

Gale crosses his arms, he has a shirt on, which is shocking in the warm afternoon, and laughs, "_Right._ You two are just real chummy."

She isn't sure why it matters to him, but she doesn't care, just huffs, gives the bolt another jerk, shaking him off before beginning her long walk to her car.

Suddenly, the weight, all from the wooden bolt inside the fluffy tulle, is lighter. She looks back and sees Gale hoisting the pair over his shoulders.

"What are you doing?"

He shrugs, "Helping."

He might trip her, laugh at her, but help her? She finds that highly unlikely.

Pulling the bolts from Madge's shoulders, he easily begins down the incline, to the parking lot.

"Where's your car?"

Confused and more than a little wary, but happy she may get off school property before the next week, Madge leads him to her car and opens the back door. She crawls through and cranks down the opposite window before backing back out and helping guide the two long bolts into the back seat.

"Parents didn't spring for them fancy new electric windows?"

Madge shoots him a dirty look. Despite what he may think, her family doesn't have all the money in the world. In fact they're consistently behind on payments because of her mother's addiction treatment eating into their funds. Her car was ancient and used, but cheap to buy and keep insurance on, especially since she didn't drive all that often.

"No, but they did let me change out the eight track for a newfangled tape deck."

Gale laughs, actually laughs. It's a shame he doesn't do it more often, she thinks, because he has a very nice one. Deep, rumbling, too pleasant. Her stomach does a flip and she curses it for its foolishness.

When he finally stops, he looks back up at the school, "How many more you got?"

###############################

Half an hour later they have all seven of Delly's tulle bolts in the back of Madge's junker car.

They're both sweaty, the afternoon sun is dying but still hot and bouncing off the new asphalt. Gale leans over and rubs his face in the bottom of his shirt, Madge's tries studiously not to look at his tanned, toned stomach, but again, it would almost be criminal not to at least _peak_ at it.

When he straightens out, twisting to pop his back, Madge gives him a tight smile.

"Thanks."

He didn't have to help her, she isn't sure why he did actually, it was uncharacteristically nice of him.

Gale grunts, as was his custom, finally having used up his quota of words to use on her for the day, and turns to walk away. He's only taken a few steps, enough for Madge to open her driver's side door, when he turns back to her.

"So, you and Mellark," his hand is at his neck, rubbing at the back, "you two really aren't together?"

Madge fights the urge to roll her eyes. What does it matter to him?

"No."

He grunts for a final time, turns and heads toward the back of the school, maybe to the Ag barn. He probably parks back there, she thinks.

Madge decides to ignore his momentary fixation on her nonexistent love life and falls into her car.

She should've run out of the gym earlier. She could be catching up on her soaps already.


	2. One Piece At A Time

Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

**One Piece At A Time**

Madge got out of her car and sighed. This was just her luck.

It wouldn't start, just made a pathetic clicking noise each time she turned the key. She went to the front and popped the hood, wedged it up with the long metal rod that lived under it, put her hands to her hips, and gave what she assumed was the engine a disapproving glare.

How dare it not want to start.

After several minutes of that not working, and that was the only tool in her arsenal, she sighed again and ran through her options.

Peeta and his family, her best shot, were out of town already, had left the day before to head to a cousin's wedding. She could call her dad, but he was out of town, so that wouldn't do her much good. Maybe he could point her in the right direction though. Her mother was at a retreat, trying to stay clean. There was Mr. Abernathy, he would come, but it was late and Madge was certain he would have started drinking. She didn't see how him walking up to the high school and cursing her car with his liquor bottle would help her.

Madge bit her lip and pulled out her phone, scrolled through the numbers.

_Katniss_.

While Katniss herself probably didn't have any auto repair skills, her dad worked for the District, so maybe he knew some basic mechanics. Maybe she was stereotyping them since they lived in the country…

Hitting the name, she prayed Katniss wouldn't be offended by the assumption.

It turned out to be a pointless worry, the Everdeens didn't even answer.

She pulled up _Delly Cartwright_. It was Delly's fault for making her stay after school for her stupid homecoming committee meeting, which Madge wasn't even on but had somehow been guilted into helping with anyways. She hoped Delly answered and had someone that could help, she owed it to Madge.

Her thumb had just begun to lower, to quickly smash the name, when someone pulled up behind her.

"Car trouble, Undersee?"

_Not you._

Why, of all the people at the school, did Gale Hawthorne have to pull up?

Madge bit her lip, "No, Gale, just admiring this marvel of modern technology."

The windows were all down in his banged up truck, which had clearly seen better days. The paint was peeling and the bed was scratched almost bare, there were patches of rush, very small, on the bumper, but it was surprisingly clean.

She heard the driver's side door open, then bang shut, and cringed when she felt Gale's looming warmth at her side, staring down at her open hood beside her.

"What all have you checked?"

He apparently feels some kind of manly duty to help her in her time of auto distress, which would be cute, if she weren't sure it was going to result in him making her feel like a complete ditz.

She shrugs, "I've opened the hood."

Gale nods, "And?"

Madge waves her hand at the car's guts, "The engine still appears to be intact."

He makes a noise, it almost sounds like a laugh, but when she looks to him he's a stoic as ever.

"Okay."

"Maybe," Madge bites her lip, "you can jump it?"

She has cables and everything, not that she's one hundred percent sure how to use them, but Gale probably did, and she has no doubt he'd_love_ to show her how to use them.

"You're radio is playing," he states, as though that's important.

"So?"

"It isn't your battery if the radio is playing. A dead battery or a shot alternator would mean your radio, lights, you know, the things the battery runs, wouldn't work." He rubs his face with his hand, "When was the last oil change?"

A small part of her wants to play dumb, ask if she's supposed to change the oil _every_year, but she's tired and covered in glitter from Delly's homecoming decorations, so she just lets her shoulders sag, "A month ago."

He nods, actually looks a little stunned she had done some basic car maintenance.

Gale takes a step forward, leans over and puts his hands on the car, staring down into the hood as though divining the root of its problem in the silence. He reaches in and pulls out the dipstick, she guesses he didn't believe her about having the oil changed, smears it on his jeans, then puts it in and out again. Once he's happy the car is in perfect working order, other than not running, he straightens up, which is a shame, she was enjoying the view.

"I bet it's your starter."

Now he was just messing with her head.

"My what?" That had to be a fake name. He was making that up.

"The starter." He walks around to her driver's side and folds himself in before trying to turn the key over, only to be met with a clicking noise. "Yeah, probably the starter."

Madge gives him a dull glare, "You aren't funny."

"I know," his brow wrinkles. "I'm not trying to be."

She arches her eyebrows. A 'starter'? Really? How stupid does he think she is?

"Do you get those at the same place you get the 'blinker fluid'?"

Gale rolls his eyes, "I'm serious, Undersee. It's a real thing. It literally makes the car start." He eyes her phone, "You have anyone you can call?"

Madge wishes she did, telling him 'no' makes her feel a little pathetic. Lying though, isn't really an option if he's telling her the truth. Maybe he'll continue to take pity on her and tell her the name of someone who won't rip her off too badly, she isn't certain the guys at the oil change center are qualified to change a 'starter', though she isn't sure.

Sadly, she shakes her head no.

He looks serious, even as he pulls out his phone and dials a number while walking to the tool chest bolted in the front of the truck bed. Probably one of his football buddies to laugh at her.

She gives her traitorous car a glare. How dare it betray her like this.

When he comes back he's holding several tools.

He hands a few to her, "When I ask for one of these hand them to me."

Madge wrinkles her nose, "What are you going to do?"

"Get the starter off," he grunts, pulling a cord or some sort off what she thinks is the battery. He goes back to his truck and grabs a jack, slides it under her car and hoists it up before sliding under is himself.

After what feels like ten minutes of Gale snapping at her for handing him the wrong tools, as if she knows one from the other, he crawls out from under it with a small part in hand.

"The starter."

He holds it out for her inspection, as if seeing the defective piece will make her understand him more. She frowns.

"So…what now?" Obviously this is an essential part. Where does she get another 'Starter'?

Gale tosses it up and catches it, "I called my dad. He's going to bring us another."

Madge nods, hoping it's that easy.

"You, uh, working on homecoming?"

She nods again. "Oh, yeah. Delly talked me into it."

He grunts. After a few moments of silence he cuts a look at her. "You coming to the game?"

"Yeah, I guess." It was probably the only game she'd attend that year. She didn't enjoy the cooling fall air or having to interact with the shrilly cheering crowd and her schoolmates. Football games, any school function really, was just a waste of time for her. Besides, it exhausted her, being around all those people.

Madge looks from her car over to him, wondering why he's trying to make small talk.

"I'm escorting Chenille Shumard," he tells her suddenly.

_Okay…_

Why his escorting Chesney's big sister during the homecoming ceremony is important, Madge isn't really certain, but she gives him a small smile. "Oh, that's nice."

If his sudden scowl is any indication, he doesn't seem to think so, but says, "Yeah."

They stand there, staring at her car as they wait for his dad.

"Hey, Undersee?"

Madge frowns and turns to him. He looks a little pale, maybe he's dehydrated from football practice, his mouth is gaping a little.

Then a truck pulls up, the District 12 emblem on the door and a government tag, the driver gives the horn a little honk. Gale scowls.

A man, about Gale's height, with a scruffy bearded and a long sleeved work shirt on, hops out. He's smiling as he brings a box over to them and hands it to Gale before jutting his hand out to Madge.

"You must be the young lady with the bad starter," he grins. His shirt is filthy, smeared with grease and dirt, emblazoned with the District 12 emblem and his name, 'Asher', on the right shoulder. "I'm Gale's dad."

He reaches out with a calloused and worn hand and shakes hers.

"It's nice to meet you Mr. Hawthorne. I'm Madge."

He chuckles, "Just call me Asher, little lady." He shoots Gale a small look, "He behaving himself?"

Madge gives him a small smile, not sure what to say. Gale was helping her, which was more than she ever really expected. So she nods, "As much as a teenage boy can I suppose."

Mr. Hawthorne laughs, it's deep and warm. Madge wonders if Gale laughs the same way, or if he's even able to laugh.

"Very diplomatic of you."

He turns and watches his son as he crawls under the little car with the starter, offering a few pointers here and there as Gale grunts acknowledgements.

Uh-huh. Yep. Yeah. I know dad. Yeah.

Mr. Hawthorne grins over at Madge after the tenth 'Uh-huh' and winks.

"He's a real conversationalist."

Madge lets a little giggle bubble out.

How did such a friendly man produce Gale? His mother must be a total witch.

The sun is sinking at their backs when Gale finally wiggles out from under the car, wiping his hands on his already filthy jeans, smearing oil and grease across his thighs. He pushes himself up from the parking lot and gestures back to the car.

"I'll get it down then we'll try it out."

He releases the jack and reconnects whatever it was that he'd pulled off earlier, then tells Madge to get in and start it.

After a deep breath, Madge turns the key, and, to her great relief, it starts.

She does a little dance in her seat, "It lives!"

Mr. Hawthorne grins as Gale slams the hood down.

"Thank you so much!" Madge beams at them, "What do I owe you for this?"

Mr. Hawthorne holds up his hand, "Helping a pretty girl is payment enough."

He bats away her wallet, waves a finger at her and laughs when she makes her saddest face at him. "I have four kids. I'm impervious to that face, little lady."

"I at least owe you for the part."

Gale's father just keeps shaking his head as he walks back toward his truck.

"Please, Mr. Hawthorne!" Madge drops her hands to her sides in exasperation.

He waves, "It's Asher, and I get a discount at the parts store, so don't worry about paying."

She's still protesting as he gets in his District truck and drives off, waving his goodbye.

Madge pulls out whatever cash she has in her wallet and tries to hand it to Gale, but he pushes it back at her.

"You heard the man."

She gives him a glare, "I'm not just gonna let you roll around on the ground and get all dirty fixing my car and not at least pay for the part."

Gale eyes the money for a moment before shaking his head and grunting, "Wasn't much work."

Madge tires to shove it in his hand but he jerks back, raises his hands above his head.

A little annoyed and ready to go home, Madge attempts to stuff the money in the pocket of Gale's shirt.

"If you want to get in my clothes you don't need money, Undersee."

She freezes.

He's grinning, there's an odd sort of gleam in his eyes, the dim sun is flickering out in them. He's _teasing_ her.

She starts to snipe back, 'yeah, I've heard,' but stops herself. He's been uncharacteristically nice to her, just repaired her car, so she bites her retort back and settles on, "Don't get excited, Gale."

"Wouldn't dream of it."

_I'll bet you wouldn't._

Gale walks around his truck and hopes in, "You can owe me lunch or something."

Madge nods, she owes him something, and if torturing her during lunch is his way of getting his pound of flesh for services rendered then she supposes she'll just have to suck it up and muddle through. She squints back at him, but can't really make out his features in the dying sun.

"Sure, and thanks, Gale. It was really nice of you. Just name the place and I'll pay up."

He tilts his head a little, nods, then shifts his truck into gear and takes off.

Madge falls into her car, sighing at the soft rumble of the now running engine. Her luck may have been crappy, but at least it had ended well this time.


	3. Crazy

Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

**Crazy**

Madge had almost forgotten about owing Gale for fixing her car when he slammed his shoulder into the locker up and to the left of hers the day after helping her drag tulle out of the school. It's during passing period, between second and third hour, and Madge is stuffing her lit book next to her algebra II book and grabbing her biology folders when she looks up and sees him staring down at her.

Her eyebrows arch as she waits for him to say something, but instead he just keeps watching her until she stands and straightens out.

"Can I help you?"

His mouth tightens into a thin line, then he tugs it over, thinking.

"Katniss is home with that stomach bug."

While she would like to think maybe her lab partner wants to reassure her she hasn't abandoned formal education and gone to live amongst the creatures in the wild, something Madge has mentioned Katniss might attempt, she doubts Katniss would really care if Madge knew where she was or why. Madge would see she wasn't in class and could figure it out from there as far as Katniss was usually concerned.

Gale had an ulterior motive. She just didn't know what it was yet.

"Oh, okay," Madge gives him a tight smile and waits for him to say something else, but he just fiddles with the handle on the locker next to him.

There's only a few minutes left in passing, she doesn't have time for him to mess with her. It wouldn't be the first time he's made her late for class.

A few months before he and his friend Thom had been tossing their football around in the halls and made her drop her Spanish folder and all her vocab cards, scattering them from the top of the hall all the way down to the end of the corridor. It had taken ten minutes to catch them all as they blew in the chilly winter wind each time someone opened the double doors leading outside. The year before he'd been roughhousing with some of his fellow football players and knocked one of their breakfasts, a barely warm paper bowl of biscuits and gravy, all over Madge's new skirt. There was the squirrel guts fiasco, the incident with the Gatorade during the basketball tournament, he'd spilled coffee all over her English report about the Great Gatsby…

Not that he didn't apologize profusely, he did, but after a while she began to grow weary of it. She would rather he just _not_ pick at her instead of doing so, then expecting forgiveness.

Madge nods, turns to leave before he decides to inflict his latest torture, but he starts walking with her.

"So, uh, remember a few months ago when I fixed your car?"

She glances over at him, he's a little pale, maybe he's getting the stomach bug too, and nods.

Gale's hand is up at his neck, rubbing it unconsciously as he forms his words in his mind, "Well, Katniss is gone today, and Thom has lunch detention, and, uh, your friend Mellark is off for his wrestling thing…"

Neither one of them have anything to do at lunch, or, more specifically, neither one of their normal lunch buddies were there. He's calling in his payment.

She freezes. _Oh, god_. She's going to have to struggle through a lunch with Gale.

"Not to sound mean," it was going to, "but don't you have a girl you actually _like,_ that likes you too, that you can go to lunch with?"

A girl he's dated, or will date, maybe? He gets around, she's heard, surely one of his former or future flavors of the week would want to drool over him for an hour?

His nose wrinkles, something like annoyance flickers in his eyes, "I _do_, but you owe me, Undersee."

Why hadn't he just let her pay him for the part? It would've been so much simpler.

Madge keeps her face neutral, but groans inside. She'd wanted to go home, watch some television, avoid humanity, but now she had to sacrifice her free time to appease Gale Hawthorne's twisted sense of repayment.

He probably didn't even care about getting paid, this was just some power trip for him. She owed him and he'd waited until she'd almost forgotten before calling in the favor.

"Fine," she starts walking again. "I'll meet you by the library."

He grunts, it sounds affirmative, then jogs off. She thinks his next class is Ag, though she isn't really sure why she has that might-be information stored in her brain. Katniss must've mentioned it at some point.

The next few hours she spends in dread. The only time she and Gale had spent significant time alone together had been when they'd had to work on a history project together, and while that had gone surprisingly well, even bordering on enjoyable, they'd had focus then, a goal. What was the goal of lunch? Other than to eat, of course.

To entertain Gale with her discomfort, she supposed.

When the lunch bell rings she slowly pushes through the halls, exchanges her books at her locker, then makes her way out the door. She expects to have to wait on Gale, but is pleasantly surprised to find him already waiting on the bench by the library door.

"Ready?"

He nods, still looking a little pale. If he gets her sick she's going to be really upset.

"I'll drive," he tells her, gesturing for her to head to the back of the school, toward the barns where she remembers he parks most days.

Since she hates driving, only has her car because of Peeta's stupid wrestling tournament, she doesn't argue, just trails after him.

When they get to his truck, still banged up and peeling, he tugs her sleeve and gestures to the driver's side door. "I have some stuff in the passenger side, get in over here."

She spots boxes, stacked in the cab, almost over to the driver's side, and groans.

"We can take my car." She'd even let him drive it. Riding in his truck she was practically going to be in his lap by the looks of it.

"It'll be fine."

He pushes her toward the open door and she can feel his eyes on her as she crawls in, sets, and presses herself as far into the boxes as possible. She flinches when his thigh smashes into her after he jumps in. "Sorry."

Carefully she rearranges her skirt, pulls it down where it had ridden up on her legs. When she's reasonably certain she's covered herself, she glances over, well, up really. Gale hasn't even gotten his keys out, is just watching her, his mouth a little gaped.

"Are we going?" There's only an hour for lunch after all. If he wants to be a creep he can do it later and with someone else.

He nods, digs in his pocket for the keys, then starts the truck and shifts it into gear before stretching his arm out, over the back of the bench seat, just behind Madge's head, letting his hand rest on one of the boxes.

"Where to?"

Madge shrugs, she can't think properly with his arm behind her and his body so close to her. His heat is permeating through her clothes more than the sun beating down through the windshield. She can smell his deodorant, and she's pretty sure he's wearing cologne. Not the cheap body spray the boys seem to think covers their smell after gym, but actual, went to the mall and bought something at the counter, cologne. Why is he wearing cologne?

She squints up at him, he's shaved. There are little traces of stubble on his chin and cheeks, down his neck, his beard must grow back quickly, but he'd tried to clean himself up a little.

His clothes are nicer than he usually wears too. No worn t-shirt and grimy jean, but a pair of what look to be new Levis and a clean and pressed gray collared shirt.

Something in her mind flickers. _What is going on here?_

"Gale?"

He grunts.

"What, uh," she can't get her question out. Finally she settles on, "So, where are we going?"

He glances down, then back to the road, "Uh, ever been to The Hob?"

She hadn't. It was some kind of flea market barn, but she'd heard it had a decent café inside. It was out in the country, past District Line Road, the 'Seam', and since she had no desire to be the first girl murdered in a horror movie, she generally avoided that area. Her head shakes 'no'.

"That okay?"

She nods. Hopefully no one will kill her if she's with one of their own.

It takes ten minutes to get to The Hob, and that's only because Gale drives at what Madge estimates to be a good ten miles over the posted speed.

The parking lot is really just a field where people left their cars, hodge podge, in semi-organized rows. Gale gets out and offers Madge a hand, which she hesitantly takes. He pulls her out, her knees give a little when her feet hit the ground and she almost loses her footing, but Gale catches her around the middle, keeping her up.

His hand stays there a little too long, she cuts him a look and he jerks away, as if she'd burned him. "Uh, let's go."

He leads the way through the weeds, a few burrs catch in her skirt and stick to her socks.

Inside the huge barn, fans, hanging precariously from the high ceiling, spin lazily. The floor is dirt, small trails have been beaten into it over the years by patrons walking the same path. It smells of dirt and dust, animals and used goods. It's a little intimidating.

Madge stays close to Gale, the few people there are eyeing her. In her nice shoes and first-hand clothes, she stands out, clearly doesn't belong.

The café is at the back. There are a few stools at a counter, which is more of a board supported on some sawhorses, under a crudely made handwritten sign with the words 'Greasy Sae's" painted on it.

Clearly it served health food.

Gale's hand presses into her back, a little lower than it should be, as he guides her past the makeshift counter, to a hobbled together booth in the corner. A girl, a little odd looking, puts a pair of soup bowls and some mason jars of ice tea in front of them before wandering off.

"I didn't order," Madge frowns at the bowl.

"There's only one thing on the menu," Gale shrugs, lifting a spoonful to his mouth.

She pokes her spoon into the stew. It looks a little like gumbo, Mr. Abernathy had made her some once. While it wasn't her favorite, she could tolerate it. This is more what she expected, not Gale messing with her head by being nice, but Gale messing with her head by feeding her food of questionable quality and origin.

He's watching her, chewing on a hank of something, probably expecting her to turn up her nose at the food. She takes a spoonful in her mouth.

It has an odd flavor, not really unpleasant but strange, and the meat has a texture she can't quite place, and she realizes, taking in the décor of taxidermy and horns, she may not want to know. Gale will probably reveal she's eaten something horrible later, but she won't let him call her a snob by refusing to eat.

"So, uh," he stares down at his bowl, "you having fun working on prom?"

She isn't. Not in the slightest. If his class would get their act together she wouldn't be contributing to something she isn't even going to get to enjoy.

"Not really."

He grunts, chews another piece of meat.

"Well don't you look all fresh and pressed today?"

A skinny old woman, missing several teeth, comes to their table, ruffles Gale's hair, which, Madge realizes belatedly, is carefully combed.

Gale gives her an irritated look, tries to right his hair, but the damage is already done. It's back to a hopeless mess.

The woman looks at Madge and grins, "Ah, so this is why."

_She thinks we're on a date!_

Before Madge can correct her, the woman grins at Gale, "First one you've brought out here. Must be special." She leans in to his ear, whispers loud enough for Madge to hear, "She's a pretty one."

Madge can feel her face burn.

The woman, she must be Greasy Sae, gives Gale one last pat on the back, before sauntering off, leaving the pair in silence.

Gale is a little darker, the color has returned to his cheeks and then some. "Sorry about that."

Madge nods, barely moves her head, "It's fine."

He tugs at the collar of his shirt, swallows hard, Madge is mesmerized by the way his Adam's apple bobs.

"Do-Have you thought about going?"

She frowns. Going to what?

He clears his throat, swallows again, "To prom, I mean."

Back to prom. Not her favorite subject.

"I can't. I'm a sophomore." Prom was Junior/Senior. Maybe years of eating tainted meat had given him memory problems.

"You could, you know, if you went with an upperclassmen…" There's a smudge of orange, the stew's juice, at the corner of his mouth.

Without thinking Madge takes her napkin, reaches across the table and dabs it from his mouth, it's going to drive her insane. Her hand freezes when Gale catches her fingers in his grasp, holds them against his face for a second before releasing them.

Madge falls back into her seat, eyes him cautiously, "The only upperclassmen I know are you and Rhys Mellark." And she isn't going to prom wi-

Oh. _Oh._

Her eyes widen and her mouth presses into a line as she stares at Gale. His Adam's apple bobs again, he licks his lips, nods, encouraging her to put it together.

"You want to go to prom," she feels her cheeks burn, "with _me_?"

He nods.

"Why?"

Gale's brow wrinkles, "'Cause I want to."

"But why?" He's spent most of the past two years embarrassing her and tormenting her.

"Because I like you and I want to," he tugs at his hair. "Isn't that a good enough reason?"

Madge's feels her face morph in disbelief, "You _like_me?"

He frowns, "Yeah."

Well that's news to her.

"Since when?" Because he certainly hadn't given her any hin-

Oh. _Oh._

"Since, I dunno, a long time." He lets his elbows hit the table as he presses his palms to his eyes. "Look, I know I do a lot of shit things to you, but trust me, most of them are accidental. I swear they are. I can't seem to ever do anything right when you're around."

Madge thinks about all the times he's seemingly tormented her. Each time she'd been so upset, annoyed, embarrassed, she hadn't looked too closely at what had happened past Gale being the cause behind each incident. Now though…

Maybe he's telling the truth. Maybe she's been too busy expecting the worst, never given him the benefit of the doubt, despite how genuinely sorry he always seems.

"I just-can we just," he sighs into his hands. "Can we try to start fresh?"

He looks a little defeated, with his fingers in his hair and his palms over his eyes, like he expects her to throw her stew at him or drown him in ice tea.

Madge reaches out, tugs his hands from his face.

He's back to being a little peaky, his eyes are bleary, and his hair is a mess. His Adam's apple bobs again as he swallows and waits for what he must think is the inevitable rejection.

"Alright."

It takes a second, but a small smile creeps up his lips as her words sink in. "You-You're serious?"

She nods, "But if this is a trick, so help me Gale, I will beat you with one those glass eyed squirrels over there."

He laughs, lets a genuine smile push his cheeks up. He's actually very handsome when he isn't impersonating Lurch.

"It's not a trick, I swear."

The clock on the wall shows they have fifteen minutes to get back to the school, so they leave the booth, weave through the stands and back out to the warm spring sun.

When they get to the truck Madge squints at the boxes, "Girl Scout Cookies?"

A lot of Girl Scout Cookies. Had he robbed a troop or something? Or was he some kind of nontraditional scout?

"My sister is a Daisy scout," his color deepens. "I'm supposed to deliver these to some of the teachers at the high school for her today after class."

"Your sister sells Girls Scout Cookies and you didn't let me buy any?" She may have to rethink this relationship.

He chuckles, "I'll put you on her list."

"You better. I love Carmel deLites."

"Not a Thin Mint girl?"

"I like those too." She makes a pained face, "Mr. Abernathy and I use to put the lemon ones in the fridge and eat them all summer, but they discontinued those."

"Tragic," he snorts.

"Are you laughing at my pain?" He's really testing this new ground their treading on.

"Wouldn't dream of it."

He opens the door and she hops in, a little more at ease when he slides in, starts the truck, and puts his arm over the back of the seat.

Madge lets her eyes flicker to his mouth. There's still a smudge, just barely, at the edge of his mouth.

"Gale," she arches her eyebrows up. When he looks over to her, she makes a gesture to her face, "You have something on your mouth."

He cringes, wipes at it with his hand, "Did I get it?"

Madge shakes her head, "No, let me help."

She reaches up, rubs it with her thumb, enjoying the feel of his rough skin under her fingers. Then, just as she's finished, gotten the mark from his face, he dips in, presses a light kiss to her lips.

"Thanks."

He heart has stopped, definitely stopped. She just stares at him, a little dumbfounded.

"Madge," he licks his lips. "You know I paid for lunch, right?"

Her nose wrinkles. "I guess I still owe you something then, huh?"

Gale leans back in, kisses her again. He tastes like the stew, spicy and unfamiliar, but she thinks she enjoys it second hand better than she had straight from the bowl.

Her hands creep up, tangle in his messy hair, pulling him closer while he shifts, pushes her against the boxes. After a few minutes, when they're both good and breathless, he sits back, fumbles with his keys before starting the truck.

"We're gonna be late for class."

For the first time, Madge doesn't care if Gale makes her miss her entire class.


	4. Someday Never Comes

Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

**Someday Never Comes**

Gale was beginning to wonder if Madge's parents were ever home.

Not that he minded the independence it granted them, not to mention the blissful quiet that came with an empty house, a concept that was almost completely foreign to him. He had three younger siblings, after all, his house was never quiet.

After a while, though, it began to get disconcerting.

"They're gone a lot," Mellark had told him, a little cryptically, when Gale had asked about Madge's seemingly absent family.

'A lot' was an understatement. Gale had yet to see either of her parents since they'd started dating. Mrs. Everdeen had given him the sad run down on Mrs. Undersee's state, she and Madge's mother had been friends when they were younger. It was something Gale didn't think Madge had any interest in talking about, but her dad was another story.

"So, uh, is your dad going to call about that leak in that sink?"

Madge, in her running shorts and a tank top, a dangerous combination Gale thinks, shrugs, "I dunno."

She's focused on the television, some stupid soap opera that she seems to hate most days, is on.

"Oh my god, why do they keep showing this mob crap!" She looks ready to fling the remote, "It's about a 'hospital', it has 'hospital' in its name! I'm not watching tomorrow."

She'd threatened the same thing the day before, and the day before that, and the day before that…

"Madge," Gale flops on the bed, landing with a muffled 'plomp' beside her. "If you don't get that leak fixed it's going to waste a ton of money when it rots out the floor."

Her nose wrinkles up, "I know. I'll do it later, alright?"

That's what she'd said about the roof, and the running toilet, and, god, he didn't even want to _think_ about how she'd rigged multiple extension cords up the stairs when the plug in her room had stopped working…

How could her parents let her live like this? Maybe her dad was one of those guys that needed to hear it from a man…

"I can tell your dad tonight," Gale tells her, pushing a few errant strands from her face.

Madge shakes her head, "He isn't coming home tonight."

"Tomorrow then."

"He won't be home tomorrow, either."

Gale growls, "Well, when will he be home?"

Madge picks at the hem of her shirt, there's a loose thread. "I-Next week? Maybe? If nothing happens." She sighs, "He's been at some kind of convention, then they had a meeting, I don't know, everytime they think they're done something happens and it extends."

"He can't just leave you here by yourself forever." Surely he couldn't.

She doesn't look so sure, "My record for staying home alone is two months." A small smile flickers on her lips, "Mr. Abernathy keeps an eye on me, even though I'm old enough to take care of myself these past few years. He'll fix the sink, just like he would've fixed the other thing if you'd have left them alone."

The drunk is watching her.

Fantastic.

Haymitch Abernathy is a creep, as far as Gale is concerned. He'd grown up out in the Seam, near Gale and Katniss' families, but after his mother and brother were killed in a fire he'd come into a lot of money and moved to Town and proceeded to become the biggest bar fly the District had ever known.

The first time Gale came to Madge's house, a week after they started dating, the old bastard had interrogated him, practically had Gale up against a wall asking him what _exactly_ he was planning with Madge.

It was less than comforting to know that the only person consistently watching Madge's back was a pervy old alcoholic.

"I'll bet."

Madge cuts him a look, "What's that supposed to mean?"

Gale rolls his eyes, she's the most oblivious person sometimes. "He's a pervert, Madge."

"Oh-Gale, he is not." She makes a face, huffs, "He and my mother, they've been friends for ages. They helped each other after his family died and her sister was killed." Her arms cross over her chest, "He loves me like a daughter."

Gale isn't so sure about that, but decides it isn't the time to poke holes in Madge's little fantasy world, not yet anyway. She likes the coot, so he'll just have to catch him in the middle of something.

In the mean time he'd fix that damn sink.

He gets up and goes to the shed out back, grabs the tool box he's been leaving at her house due to the frequency of his finding things to repair, then heads back upstairs to the broken sink.

"Gale, I told you, I'll get Mr. Abernathy to fix it."

That only makes Gale grunt, work a little quicker, he isn't leaving the house until that sink is fixed and Haymitch has no reason to be inside.

Madge huffs, Gale hears her plop onto the toilet seat next to him. She bends and peers around the corner of the cabinet, to where Gale is on his back under the sink, searching for the source of the leak.

He locates it fairly quickly, and is happy to find he isn't going to have to replace anything, just tighten a few nuts. Though in an old house like this, it was only a matter of time before all the ancient pipes _did_ need replaced.

With another grunt, he pulls himself out from under the sink and sits up, wiping a few droplets of water off his forehead. "There, fixed."

"Thanks," Madge begins picking at the loose thread on her shirt again.

Gale looks around, frowns to himself.

This house _is_ ancient. Beautiful, but old. And with old houses came drafts during the winter through the rickety windows and doors, no insulation in the attic, poorly sealed window units and suspicious, under-maintained looking fireplaces in place of central heat and air…

Madge's house is a disaster waiting to happen.

Why don't her parents taken the time to update the place? Bring it up to code, make it _safe_ for their daughter?

They bothered with the outside, had put siding over the peeling paint and ancient wood years ago, Gale remembers driving past it. Madge keeps the garden and flower beds nice, weeded and watered, plants new flowers with each season.

Even the inside is carefully maintained, but only superficially.

It's clean, which is Madge's doing. All lighting has been updated, but the wiring had simply been worked around, probably done on the cheap by someone who knew better but didn't care, definitely unsafe. The faucet heads, all the handles and fixtures, have been changed out, but the lead piping, which is rusting and nearing the end of its life, is still intact.

The walls are all bare except for a few paintings that look old and expensive, no family portraits, no drawings or report cards pinned to the fridge, no laundry on the couch. The guest bathroom even has an expensive, stupid looking hand towel you really aren't supposed to use hanging in it.

Madge's home is just a house. Staged for maximum beauty, but when you scratch the surface, it's a complete mess.

The only rooms that ever feel liked they've been lived in are Madge's bedroom and her bathroom. She's careful to pick up after herself in the living room and, on the rare occasion she uses it, the kitchen. From what Gale could tell she's existed by mooching off the Mellarks and making microwave dinners before he came along and insisted she come to eat with him and his family almost nightly.

Gale pushes himself up, wipes his hands on his pants, smearing some of the traces of pipe rust across his thigh. Shit. His mother is going to kill him.

Madge's eyebrows knit together, her nose wrinkles in irritation at herself, "I'm sorry I didn't get it fixed."

Gale sighs. It isn't her job to get things like leaky pipes fixed, or the roof, or electrical fixtures, that's her absentee parents' job. She's sixteen, too young to be keeping up with those kind of things.

She won't see it that way, though. She's been left to her own devices too long, been given too much responsibility. Madge will see it as her failing.

Just like her house, Madge is perfect on the outside, all the pieces people see shine and glisten, but just like her house, Gale knows she's one rough season from going to pieces. Whether she realizes it or not.

He grabs her hands, hauls her up from her seat and throws her over his shoulder.

"Gale!" She squeals, tries to wiggle free but he makes it to the bed and tosses her down before he begins tickling her.

Madge tries to bat him away, but she's almost comically ticklish.

He catches her wrists, leans in and kisses her quickly before burying his face in her sweet smelling hair, "I'm not mad at you, alright?"

He's pissed beyond belief at her parents for not being around to _be_ parents, but not her.

It isn't anger or pity that's turning his stomach, she would hate that, but worry that she'll let herself fall apart and not let him know. He's watched her from the outside for so long, never realizing what her life is really like, she keeps up her appearances well, but he doesn't want her to keep him at arm's length.

"If you need something, you let me know, okay?" He kisses her temple, "I don't want you living in a deathtrap."

She wraps her arms around his neck, presses her lips to his ear, "You just think you look good fixing stuff around the house."

_I do._

"Whatever," he starts kissing down her neck, then back up, catching her lips. His hands wander down, begin toying with the bottom hem of her tank top. _This_ was definitely one of those times he was grateful for the independence.


	5. Love Me Tender

Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

**Love Me Tender**

Prom was definitely not what Madge had imagined. It wasn't supposed to be so stressful.

Madge had gotten up at the crack of dawn to help Delly and the other 'volunteers' set up before heading to get her hair and makeup done. Her tulle swags had been on full display, doused in a healthy dose of what Delly had affectionately called 'diamond dust'. It was glitter. Horrible, impossible to get rid of, glitter. She'd ended up coated in the stuff.

"You just have to resign yourself to being a human disco ball," Birdy Alameda, one of the college girls that worked at Madge's favorite coffee shop, had told her after the tenth or eleventh attempt to dust herself off.

The other girl, Katy-Jo Lewes, had nodded, handing Madge her favorite caramel frappuccino, "Might as well get the bedazzler out and get your dress to match, hon."

Then her hair was a complete disaster. Pretty enough, but stiff as a board, if it wasn't in curls it would've likely put out someone's eye. They'd used an entire jar of some kind of super sculpting gel and two cans of hairspray to get it to stay in place. Madge was fairly certain it would take her several days to wash it all out.

After that she'd decided to do her own makeup. The way her day was going, it was best just to make _herself_ look like a clown instead of let the lunatic makeup artist at the mall do it for her.

When Gale showed up at her door, Mr. Abernathy had answered, glared him down, and proceeded to ask him twenty different questions.

"Where are you going to eat?"

"What time are you getting to the dance?"

"What time are you leaving?"

"Where are you going after?"

"What time will you be bringing her home?"

All things he'd already asked Madge and received the answers to a dozen times the week leading up to the dance itself.

After getting Gale's number, then begrudgingly taking pictures for the parents, he'd let them go, but not before telling Madge he'd wait up for her.

She had no doubt he would try, but Mr. Abernathy was usually out like a light before the ten o'clock news.

Gale sighed, ran his hands through his hair and reverting it to its naturally unruly state, when he finally got her in the truck, which he'd apparently meticulously scrubbed and vacuumed out.

"I, uh, got you a little flower thing."

He pulled a corsage, a simple, single white lily with a silver ribbon, from the dash and looked at it for a second.

"My mom picked it out. I didn't know what color your dress was."

Madge hadn't even known what color her dress was going to be until the day before. It had been such short notice most of the dresses at the mall had been incredibly picked over. They were either not her size or hideous. If Peeta hadn't suggested they go to the second hand store she might've just called Gale, in a disgusting sobbing mess, and cancelled.

In the end they'd found a simple lavender dress. It didn't have straps, so she'd had to buy a strapless bra, something Peeta had been dumbfounded by. It was uncomfortable and itchy and constantly felt like it was slipping, but she was down to the wire and out of options.

She'd borrowed her mother's diamond pendant on a silver necklace and tennis bracelet, a pair of dangly earrings, and dug through her closet until she found her lone pair of heels. They were black, but she didn't care, her dress was long enough no one would see them anyway.

Madge carefully slipped the corsage on her wrist. She thought it was supposed to pin to her dress, but considering she was already having a hard enough time keeping the stupid thing from falling down without the added weight of flowers, and the fact that Gale's hands seemed abnormally sweaty, she decided it was for the best not to even try.

They'd picked a little Italian restaurant for dinner, which Madge quickly realized was a terrible idea. Both she and Gale spent most of the meal trying desperately not to flip sauce on themselves.

Halfway through it Madge had panicked, thinking she'd forgotten to put on deodorant. She'd dropped her utensils and run to the bathroom to check under her arms, praying the whole time that she didn't have enormous pit stains.

It turned out she _had_ remembered to put some on, but she still felt a tinge of anxiety about Gale reaching around her waist to dance and feeling her sweating buckets through her dress.

As they finally make it to the dance, she regrets the dinner even more for being just a tad too heavy. She's positive that if she tries to 'bust a move', as Peeta had put it, she might just bust a seam as well.

When she takes in the end product of Delly's madness she's a little underwhelmed.

After all the preparation Delly had put into it, Madge expects something a little grander, a little more pizzazz, and a little less cheese. It didn't have to be Grease and it definitely didn't have to be Carrie, but maybe just a touch of Footloose, for the music at least, wouldn't have been bad.

Since the time Madge had left, very little had been done.

They've set up a few tables, stung out what appears to be several dozen rolls of crepe paper from the ceiling, making the entire gym look a bit like a circus tent, and tossed more glitter, apparently without any particular rhyme or reason, all over the floor.

_Well, at least it's definitely not Carrie._

"The tulle is nice," Gale says, his eyebrows knitting together.

Madge snorts, "Thanks."

She watches as Gale surveys the party. Probably looking for someone he knows. Madge doesn't bother, she only knows a handful of upperclassmen and the only one she knows well enough to hang around with is Rhys Mellark, and he hadn't come.

Gale finally spots one of his football buddies, Thom. He's gangly and a bit uncoordinated from what Madge had seen, but he's enthusiastic and she supposes that counts for something. His date is a girl Madge vaguely recognizes. She's tall like Gale and Thom, a bit on the thin side, olive skinned and dark headed too, but she has a harder look about her than the boys. Like she's suspicious of something.

When Gale gestures for Madge to follow, she gets a flutter of nervousness. She still isn't certain of all this. If Gale's friends don't like her, if she says something wrong or offends them, she still thinks he might leave her.

That would be her luck.

The girl gives her a tight, but friendly enough smile and Thom grins brightly.

"I thought he was pissin' in the wind when he told me you were coming with him."

Madge nods, her queasiness abates a little.

For a few minutes the three upperclassmen chat and Madge watches the dancing. The music choices are a little predictable, Madge likes most of it well enough, but when the Macarena begins, her tolerance wanes.

Finally, the DJ comes over the outdated sound system. It pops and cracks before his voice booms overhead.

"Alright, kids, I'm gonna slow it down for a couple of the chaperones celebrating their anniversary tonight. So here's an oldie but a goodie!"

To Madge's relief, the always soothing voice of The King drifts over them lazily. She sighs. She's been so keyed up over the preparations, getting ready, not rubbing her disgusting sweat all over Gale, that it's the first truly enjoyable moment of the night.

"You wanna dance?" Gale has his hands in his pockets, looking a little uncertain.

She's terrified of smelling, being slick with sweat, but nods, they're at a dance after all.

As discreetly as she can, she rubs the perspiration from her palms and takes Gales hand. It's a little clammy too, so she gives him a reassuring smile.

Somewhat timidly, Gale puts on of his hands at her waist, fumbles and grabs her fingers before correcting himself. She almost fixes his hands, he's all backwards unless he wants her to lead, but then she remembers from class he's left-handed.

They dance stiffly for a minute before Madge decides they're both being stupid. He's every bit as nervous as she is. They need to relax.

Before she can think it through, realize how ridiculous she's going to look, Madge pushes forward, wraps her arms around his middle and pressed her ear to his sternum. Gale makes a startled noise and she grimaces. He probably thinks she's suffering from pasta intoxication.

Then, hesitantly, he wraps his arms around her shoulders. His cheek comes to rest on the top of her head.

The tension that had hung around them since he'd picked her up seems to evaporate.

Madge inhales deeply, he's wearing the cologne from their first 'date'.

As the song ends she feels a little puff of warmth, as he exhales, blow through her stiff hair.

"Hey," she hears him swallow, feels his Adam's apple bob against her head, "you wanna get outta here?

Madge chuckles, "You have no idea."

##############################

They get pancakes, double chocolate chip, from the Waffle House, and even have the waitress put whip cream smiley faces on them. Madge doesn't even care that it makes her dress incrementally tighter.

Gale goes into the dollar store and buys a cheap plastic comb and they spend an hour trying to right her hair in the cab of his truck.

"It's like my sister's doll's hair," he tells her as he gently works a curl out.

"I suffered this pain for you," she wrinkles her nose. He could at least appreciate it. "I just wanted to be pretty."

His eyebrows knit together, "But you're always pretty."

Madge snorts. He obviously hasn't seen her after cross-country practice. Pretty is the exact opposite of what she is then.

"What?" He looks genuinely confused, "You are."

"You're very sweet. A humongous liar, but sweet."

He runs his hands through her now gel-less and hairspray-less tresses, pulls her face forward until her lips are softly pressed to his.

When he stops he dips a little, his nose nuzzles into her neck. She can feel his lips move against her skin, his warm breath skitter down the back of her dress when he speaks, "I'm no liar."

His hands find their way down to her waist as he starts kissing her neck and collar bone and she starts to giggle.

Gale pulls back, a mischievous grin forming on his face, "Are you ticklish?"

She is, horribly so.

Quickly, probably too quickly, she shakes her head.

"Liar."

Before Madge can mount a proper defense he begins poking and prodding her, breaking her down into a mess of laughter as she tries to worm away.

He pulls her back, kisses down her neck as he continues his tickle attack.

"You called me a liar, but I was telling the truth." His nose presses into the space behind her ear, "You are always beautiful."

She's just started to wind down from laughing when he starts tickling her again, "You, though, you are a liar." He kisses her jaw just under her ear, "You are the most ticklish person I've ever met."

When he finally feels she's sufficiently suffered for her fib, they settle into a series of long kisses that only stop when they're both breathless and panting.

They spend the rest of the night, up until the time Madge had promised Mr. Abernathy she would be home, with Madge pointing out constellations for Gale from the back of his pick-up.

Prom may not have gone as Madge had thought it would, but the aftermath had been worth the trouble.


	6. Tear In My Beer

Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

**Tear in My Beer**

Madge hates pep rallies.

They give her headaches, both from the loudness and the combined stupidity of her classmates. The only good thing about them is they get her out of class, and mess up the other classes for the day, almost guaranteeing a 'no homework' night and a gloriously free day during class.

This particular rally is for the wrestling team, and they never get enough recognition, especially considering they are one of the best in the state. Peeta had even won some fancy pants match last year, got a big ring to show for it.

Delly is in charge, and it had only been by the most cruel of coercions that Madge had decided to help.

"We need volunteers," she'd pleaded. "Don't you want Peeta to have a good send off for the first match of the year?"

_That's low._

So instead of going home for lunch, she's trapped in the field house with Delly, the few wrestling cheerleaders, including Chesney and Pressley, making 'goodie' bags and decorations for the wrestling boys' lockers.

Madge watches as an overly excited Delly opens yet _another_ bag of candy, it looks like sweettarts, but she isn't certain.

"You realize they can't eat this candy, right?" Wrestling boys are very particular about food, making weight. It seems a bit cruel to taunt them with sweet treats when they won't touch them until spring. Madge often worries about Peeta's eating habits during the season.

This seems lost on Delly, who despite the other girls nods of agreement with Madge, presses on.

"They can have just a little."

They probably could, but they wouldn't.

Chesney shrugs, tosses several chocolates into her current bag. It isn't worth arguing with Delly once she's made her mind up, however wrong it may be.

Madge shifts on her seat, an empty plastic sack. She'd flat out refused to sit on the sweat soaked ground in the field house. It was disgusting. Why Delly wouldn't just let them make these stupid things in the girls' locker room, she didn't know.

An icy blast hits them as the door to the field house opens, bringing in bits of dried grass and dead leaves with it.

Gale and one of his friends, Thom, tumble in, followed by an exasperated Katniss. They look around, obviously confused by a gaggle of glitter covered girls sitting in what Madge thinks they probably consider the last bastion of total manliness. Except for Katniss, of course, very few girls venture into the disgusting place.

"Uh, what are you doing in here?" Thom asks.

Delly gives him a bright look, "Making decorations for the wrestlers."

For some reason Gale looks annoyed by this, his eyebrows scrunch together in a scowl. He eyes the glue and glitter names the girls have so carefully made for each of the boys' lockers and huffs, seeing the mess they've made of the ground.

"I hope you all are planning on cleaning up the floor," he jabs his finger at the globs of glitter and shards of construction paper they've half-heartedly attempted to sweep up.

It was a little funny to Madge that he was annoyed with a mess of crafting supplies when he'd just brought a pile of autumn detritus in with him.

Chesney and Pressley nod stupidly at him.

"Absolutely," Chesney says. She waves her hand at the bench she'd been sitting on, "Did you come in to work out? I can move."

She nearly trips trying to stand, almost knocks the still stupidly grinning Pressley over when she does, not that the other girl notices.

"Uh, no," Gale shoots Thom and Katniss a baffled little look. His nose scrunches up and one of his eyebrows arches while the other crunches down on his eye. Madge would almost qualify it as cute, bordering on adorable, if not for his previous attitude.

"We just came to get something out of the ice box," Thom tells them.

Madge nearly snorts with laughter at the looks of utter disappointment on Chesney and Pressley's faces. They'd probably had their hopes up that he'd start stripping off layers right there. He was pretty notorious for it, actually.

Katniss looks bored as she picks up one of Delly's creations, a unitard with the words 'Go Peeta!' shimmering in sparkle glue across it.

Delly instantly senses blood in the water, "Do you want to h-"

"No."

_More like '_**_hell no'_**_._

"Are you su-"

"Yes."

Katniss Everdeen, with her quick appraisal of the situation, had done what Madge had often dreamed of doing: giving Delly Cartwright a sharp and decisive decline.

Before Delly can press the issue further, Katniss turns and walks out.

"I'll meet you guys at the truck," she calls back to Gale and Thom, not even looking back.

Thom brushes past the girls, to the fridge at the back of the building. Madge assumes they keep ice and cold packs for the football players in it, but for some unknown reason Thom is pulling what appears to be a ziplock bag out of the chilly, and assuredly disgusting, depths.

"What the hell is that?" Madge asks before realizing she _really_doesn't want to know.

Thom hoists his plastic bag high, smiles at it fondly, "Squirrel." He jiggles it a little. The fridge obviously hadn't made the poor thing solidly chilled enough, Madge can see a bit of something brownish, presumably blood, pooled at the bottom, slushily moving with each of Thom's movements.

"We killed it during weightlifting yesterday. It had set up house over coach's office, was driving him 'nuts'," Thom laughs at his own joke.

Pressley rolls her eyes and actually groans.

_Boys are so weird._

Madge just barely stops herself from asking why, for the love of all things dear and precious, they had decided to save the poor thing in the fridge. She's heard Katniss and Gale discussing various 'jerkies' during class, so she's pretty sure she knows the little guys fate.

A little juice drips from the bag, onto the floor with a splatter and forming a tiny puddle, there must be a hole in it. It takes some effort to keep from gagging at the sight.

Delly makes a noise of disgust, "Ew! Get that thing out of here."

"You got it," Gale chuckles. He waves a hand, "Toss that bad boy to me Thom."

Laughing, Thom takes the bag and tosses it at Gale. Madge knows nothing good is going to come of it the moment it leaves Thom's spindly hand.

It arches over the group of girls, leaving a trail of blood arching through the air in its wake.

The force from the throw, the pressure from Gale's hands catching it, must be too much, because as soon as it is in his hands the flimsy, leaky bag breaks.

Wet, cold squirrel blood explode just above Madge's head, splattering in her hair, drizzling down her face and onto her clothes.

Delly's mouth drops. Chesney, Pressley, and the other cheerleaders make squealing noises before bursting into giggles.

"Whoops," Thom grimaces, makes a conciliatory little shrug.

Madge presses her mouth shut, she doesn't want blood in her mouth. Her entire body trembles as she stands, turns and looks at a visibly pale Gale.

He still has the busted bag clutched in his hands, his knuckles are a little white.

"Un-Madge, I-uh-I-"

He doesn't get to finish whatever he's going to say, Madge bolts from the main weight area, to the bathrooms. She has to get the squirrel blood off her.

There's a mirror over the sink, cracked and filthy. When she looks in it she sees streaks of blood in her blonde hair.

Fighting down the bile burning her throat, shaking, and the tears leaking out the corners of her eyes, she tries to get her head in the sink. She wants to wash the horrible blood off but she can't touch it.

_Oh god, oh god, oh god!_

She's decided to drown herself in the shallow little sink, if she can't get it out it's her only option, when a hand gently runs through her hair. With a little splash she begins seeing red wash down the sink.

"I, uh, some of the Freshmen must've messed with it," Gale's deep voice floats down to her. "We warned them not to try and gut it. They probably tore the bag too."

Madge tries to jerk away from him, but ends up hitting her head on the faucet in the process.

"Be careful," Gale tells her as he guides her out from under the tap.

Straightening out, she shoots him a glare, sniffles, before checking the mirror. Her eyes are red and puffy, she must've cried a lot more than she realized, and her hair is soaked. On the plus side the squirrel blood is gone now.

Her clothes are still splattered with red, it could be ketchup if she didn't know better.

Gale hands her a towel. It's probably dirty, heaven only knows how often they do laundry in the field house.

"No, thanks," her voice cracks and she wills herself not to burst into tears.

Hands held out in front of her, Madge doesn't want to touch her clothes, she rushes past him. She's going to the girls' locker room up at the main school and putting on her gym clothes then she's taking the afternoon off.

If getting covered in squirrel innards isn't an excused absence, then what is?

"Delly, I'm done."

As if that isn't abundantly clear. Which for Delly, it might not be.

Practically running out the door, leaving behind the giggling girls, she's halfway up to the school when she realizes she freezing not only because of the wind and her wet hair, but because she's left her coat back in the field house, draped over one of the weight racks. Damn.

Deciding it isn't worth going back and facing the undoubtedly still snickering girls, Madge ducks into the side door to the gym, down the back hall, and into the girls' locker room.

She contemplates firing up the ancient showers that no one uses, they've actually appropriated them for storage closets of sorts since Madge's mother was in school, but when she sees a spider and several nasty looking webs, decides against it.

Pulling a garbage bag out for her clothes, she's going to burn them, burn them to dust, she pulls her top and skirt off, throwing the blood splattered garments quickly in.

Behind her, she hears the door creak open and drop shut.

She expects Delly to peak around the corner, Chesney and Pressley are probably still giggling with the other cheerleaders and Madge wouldn't want them seeing her nasty hair anyway. For all her faults, Delly at least looks in on the less fortunate, even if it's partly her fault they're in their unfortunate state in the first place.

"I'm fine Delly," Madge calls over her shoulder. She isn't really, but there's nothing to be done about it.

It isn't Delly's blonde head and blue eyes that gaze back at her, though, when Madge looks in the mirror.

Gale, with a little grimace on his face, towel still in hand, is watching her trying to pick a stubborn knot out of her hair. His mouth drops a little after he swallows, Madge can see his Adam's apple bob.

She's glad he hadn't come in a few minutes early, he'd have gotten an eyeful and added to Madge's miserable day.

"I'm so sorry."

_Right._

Glaring, Madge turns to look at him, feels tears prickling her eyes. "This is the _girls'_locker room."

In other words: Get out.

He takes a step toward her, "I didn't-I, uh…"

It almost looks like _he_might cry. Probably worried she's going to tell his coach or the principal or something. As if it would do any good. What punishment was there for keeping a dead squirrel in the fridge anyhow? Or accidentally spraying its blood all over an underclassmen?

Probably none.

Besides, Gale was their little football star, even if the season was over, they weren't going to punish him. Especially if he stuck to the story that the Freshmen had tampered with he and Thom's little trophy.

"I'm really sorry." He tries handing her the towel again. She takes it just to get him to stop. Over his arm is something else: her coat.

When he sees her eyes flicker to it he takes it, a little clumsily, and holds it out to her. "It's freezing and you forgot it."

With a little nod, Madge snatches it from his hand, throws it around her shoulders to hide her pitiful gym shirt and short.

"I, uh-You didn't drive today," he says suddenly. Why he's deciding to point out that fact she isn't sure, other than to let her know she's stranded at the school at least until Peeta gets back from lunch. Gale takes a deep breath, "I, uh, could drive you to your house, you know, so you could get warmer clothes…"

"I'm going to call Peeta. He's my ride."

For some reason that makes him scowl, "Well, it'd be quicker if I took you."

Why he thinks a girl he's just doused in the ooey gooey blood of a rodent would want to sit in close quarters with him, she isn't sure. Maybe one too many hits to the head during the state championship?

She shoots him a withered look, is about to tell him to leave or she's going to scream, his coach would have one heck of a time explaining his being in the girls' locker room, when Katniss comes around the corner, glowering.

"Delly called Peeta for you. He said he's on his way," she tells Madge before turning to Gale. "You need to get your butt out of here."

Gale shoots Katniss a small look, somewhere between grateful and annoyed, before glancing back at Madge. He sighs, "I'm sorry."

He is, she can tell, but she's still angry.

Not really sure what to do, she believes him, but she's past horrified, she sighs, "I know. I won't get you in trouble. Don't worry."

That doesn't make him look much happier, in fact, Madge thinks he almost looks more upset by her acceptance than he had originally.

Looking a little pale, he leaves, casting one last pitiful look at Madge before he does.

Katniss gives Madge a once over before shrugging, "You got it all out."

"I'm still going home."

Unlike Katniss, who was some kind of survivalist, Madge doesn't play in animal innards on a regular basis. Or ever. Madge doesn't even like making hamburger patties.

With another shrug, Katniss sits on the concrete benching in front of the lockers.

"Gale didn't mean for that to happen," she says. "Those idiots use the same ziplocks over and over again. They get holes in them."

Nodding, Madge doesn't really understand why Katniss is adding to Gale's apology, explaining him to her. They're friends, that's sufficient enough reason, Madge supposes. Still…

"You know how boys are when they get around their friends, and, uh, girls," she adds. "They try to show off."

If showing off entails tossing dead animals around and busting their containers over the heads of innocent bystanders, Madge just doesn't understand the mental workings of teenage boys.

Peeta and his brothers would never act like that, she's certain of it. Though, honestly, they don't have the opportunity to toss things at her, like squirrels.

"Well, if they were aiming to impress the other girls with their feat of stupidity and embarrassing me, bravo," Madge runs her fingers through a knot in her hair.

Katniss grumbles something, Madge can't quite make it out, then she sighs, "Just…remember he's sorry."

Madge wrinkles her nose, "I know. I won't get him in trouble."

There's a knock on the door, it creaks open and Madge hears a soft male voice call in, "Madge? You in there?"

_Thank god. _

"I need a ride home." _I'm never coming back._

"Alright, _darling_, get out here. I only have ten minutes to get you there and back."

Snatching up her trash bag of clothes and throwing on her coat, Madge heads around the corner and out the door, Katniss right behind her.

Peeta, who'd been slouching against the opposite wall, perks up when Katniss appears behind Madge.

"You need a ride too?" He looks beside himself, like his birthday had come early.

Katniss frowns, shakes her head, "Just talking to Madge." She tilts her head slightly at the other girl, "See you tomorrow."

With that she's gone, down the hall and out the door.

Peeta deflates again. He gives Madge a small smile, "Maybe next time, right?"

Despite the fact that Madge doesn't think so, she gives him a small smile, "Sure."

Making a face, Peeta gives Madge's trash bag a little kick, "So…you wanna tell me what happened?"

###################################

Gale slumps in the driver's seat of his truck.

He has the worst luck. Absolutely horrendous.

"You don't have bad luck," Katniss tells him as she crosses her arms, watches Madge and Peeta exit the school. "You make shitty choices."

Thom nods sagely from her other side, "Yeah, you told me to throw it."

Aren't friends supposed to make you feel better when bad stuff happens?

"But, yeah, you have bad luck too," Thom finally says, biting off a hank of deer jerky.

How many guys accidentally splattered the girl they liked in blood? Animal blood at that, not that any blood would've been acceptable, but still, a squirrel?

Now Mellark is getting to be the knight in shining armor, taking her home and saving the day, while Gale is the jerk that ruined her polo and skirt. It just wasn't fair.

He watches Madge, arms curled around her body, tucked into her coat pockets as she pads along beside Mellark. She must be recounting the incident to him because he grimaces, then laughs. Madge punches him in the arm.

Gale slumps further in his seat.

"If Peeta is laughing he'll get her to laugh too," Katniss says. "She'll get over it."

Why Katniss is such a Peeta Mellark expert he doesn't really know. She's never shown much interest in him, or any guy for that matter. There are worst boys she could be fascinated with, he supposes. If Mellark were distracted with her maybe he'd spend less time with Madge…

He still doubts Madge is going to 'get over' it, though. This isn't knocking her note cards down the hall or even splattering her with gravy. This is so much worse.

If he'd ever had a chance with her before, he's blown it now.

################################

Peeta's laughter eases the embarrassment.

"Come on," he finally says once they're in his car. "You have to admit…it's a little funny."

She crosses her arms tightly across her middle, glares over at him. It is _not_funny.

"I've got blood in my hair," she reaches up, tugs at a strand. "From a _rodent._A cousin of a mouse."

It is _not_funny.

Still chuckling, Peeta nods. They drive in silence for a few minutes, down the few blocks to her house before he attempts to talk again.

"You know, they didn't know the bag would bust," he says. "I'm sure Gale felt bad. He's a nice guy, clearly not the best judgment, but nice."

Now Peeta was defending Gale to her. Great.

"I'm just saying, he probably is sorry. It could've happened to, uh, well not _anyone_."_Clearly_. "But it wasn't malicious. Go easy on him."

###################################

Madge had helped with the locker decorations on Friday, put the pointless goodie bags in too, but Delly's persuasiveness hadn't convinced her to be a part of the actual disaster that will be the rally.

Katniss looks as bored as ever as she walks just ahead of their group from class into the gym for the much anticipated pep rally. She slouches over, to the farthest end of the bleachers, up to the top, before collapsing down. Madge decides to sit next to her. Normally she sits with Peeta, but seeing as Peeta is part of the pep rally, as is Delly, her only other real option is sitting alone.

"Do they have to be so…"

"Peppy?" Madge offers.

Katniss grunts.

The name _pep rally_ had obviously not properly clarified what kind of attitude was going to be expected.

Gale and two of his friends, Thom and a girl, make their way through gawking Freshmen and up to where Katniss is.

The girl takes a seat, but Gale and Thom spot Madge and stop on the row below, eyeing her warily.

She's still a little grossed out that she'd recently had blood in her hair and on her clothes, but Peeta had finally gotten her to laugh at the disaster. It _is_ a little funny, with some distance between it and now.

"You aren't going to knock us down the stairs are you?" Thom asks.

Madge makes a thoughtful face, "No, but I might throw my dissected frog at your heads."

Thom laughs, flops down, but Gale stays standing.

He's a little pale, maybe still worried she's going to get him in trouble, so she forces a small smile.

"Oh, come on, it would be only fair, right?" She holds up her hands, as if weighing the two, "Squirrel guts has got to be comparable to frog guts."

Gale seems to consider her for a minute, looks slightly sick, before his shoulders relax his lips seem to turn up just a fraction. His eyes flicker to Katniss, then back to Madge, "You aren't mad?"

She arches her eyebrows, "Oh, I'm _furious_, but I'll get you back."

It may take the next two years, but she _will_ get him back.

He seems content with that, takes the seat in front of her. Madge sees Thom jab him in the side with his elbow, a congratulations for not getting in any trouble she thinks, because Gale brightens, the color on his face darkens.

She shrugs it off as the band begins to play; those boys haven't won anything, even if they think they have.

The pep rally is loud, obnoxious, and for the first time Madge is disappointed to miss class. She has a disgusting frog with Gale Hawthorne's name written on it in the lab…if she can just get herself to touch it.


	7. Only Make Believe

Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

A/N-I've made a timeline thingie of the stories and put it on my profile to help with any confusion about the sequence of events.

**Only Make Believe**

Madge is almost asleep, first hour is painfully early and feels way too long for a high school class.

Normally, she enjoys history. She and Peeta love 'Band of Brothers' and 'The Pacific' and she's watched so many documentaries over almost every period in human history that it's almost embarrassing. History class on the other hand…

Madge is pretty sure she's learned more historically accurate information in earth science than she has in almost two months of world history with Coach Cray.

She'd given him a chance, the first few weeks, and then he made them watch 'Pearl Harbor'. Not that she didn't appreciate seeing Josh Harnett, she did, but that was about the only thing she enjoyed about watching the multi-day waste of time. It almost physically pained her to watch it, and she nearly strangled Chesney everytime she replayed scenes.

She's jolted awake by someone flopping down in the front of her row, jarring her desk and knocking her pencil onto the floor with a little clatter. Not that the giant that caused the disturbance even noticed.

Gale Hawthorne, looking like he'd put the barest minimal into his morning routine, seemed blissfully unaware that he'd made himself a nuisance just by sitting, with all the grace of a drunken moose, in his regular seat.

Sighing, Madge leans down and grabs her pencil from the floor, shoots the animatedly jabbering boys a dark look, then sits back, slouching down and hoping to catch a nap before the next hour.

Just as she's drifting off again, gripping her writing utensil in her hand, Coach Cray comes into the room, looking annoyed and grumbling to himself, rubbing his blood shot eyes. He drops into his ancient chair behind his desk, it creaks loudly, and begins thumbing through one of several papers on his desk. Madge thinks they're probably notes on football practice, because lord knows having anything to do with the subject he supposedly _teaches_ on his desk would be a high crime.

After a few minutes he stands, stretches, then barks out at the class, "Shut up." He squints out at them, seems utterly annoyed at having to be in their presence, which Madge can commiserate with, then cracks his neck, "Alright, I've been told that _someone_ complained about the lack of supposed structure in this class." He huffs, as though the idea is ludicrous, "So you bunch of ingrates have earned yourselves a report."

The room lets out an almost synchronized groan.

While Madge thinks the class is a bit of a joke, she can live with it. She uses the hour to catch up on homework for other classes, watch Chesney fix her hair in elaborate curls, eat breakfast, or, most importantly, catch a nap before the long day. A report is going to majorly cut into her beauty sleep.

Racking her brain, Madge can think of only person who would ever complain about a lack of work in a class.

Delly Cartwright is definitely on Madge's shit list.

Chesney raises her hand, "Do we have to?"

Coach Cray sneers, "Yes, Shumard, you do."

He turns back to the whiteboard, begins scribbling in his cuneiform scrawl the requirements of the report. When he reaches the third point, which Madge is unable to decipher, he stops. For a second Madge wonders if he's finally blown an artery. Then a wicked smile forms on his face.

"I think you kids need some bonding time," he turns back to the class. "This report will be done in pairs."

##########################

Gale almost groans out loud when Coach Cray barks out, "Hawthorne and, uh…Undersee."

Of all the people to get saddled with for this joke of a report, it had to be her.

Why couldn't he have gotten Shumard? At least she didn't dress like she just walked out of a J. Crew ad. If he's going to be stuck working with someone it might as well be someone worth looking at.

Not that Undersee isn't pretty, he just thinks she'd be a lot prettier if she loosened up a little. She takes this high school crap way too seriously.

Knowing he isn't going to enjoy the next forty-five minutes, at least not today, Gale gets up and slowly makes his way to the back of the room where Undersee likes to lurk. He isn't sure why, Coach loves her, all the teachers do, but she seems to be trying to position herself as far from the teacher's eye line as possible.

Looking less than thrilled, Undersee stands, picks up her heavy looking backpack. Did she carry all her books with her?

"Did you get our subject?"

Gale holds up the slip of paper with Coach's illegible scribble on it.

She juts out her hand, perfectly manicured and undoubtedly soft, an expectant look on her face. Rolling his eyes, Gale plops it down, with more force than is really necessary, in her palm.

Her nose wrinkles up and she pushes a stray strand of hair out of her face. She seems to be thinking about the word on the paper, which Gale is clueless about, before nodding.

"Should we start with looking it up?" Because he's half certain Coach made it up.

Giving him a look that plainly says 'why would I do that?', Undersee shakes her head, "I know what it is."

Of course she would, she's just the type of girl to have all kinds of obscure knowledge tucked away in her blonde head. It's probably some stupid type of dress. Coach probably did it for a good laugh.

"Well," he raises his eyebrows, "care to fill me in?"

A little smile tugs at her lips and she waves the little paper, "A trebuchet."

Wow. She's unhelpful incarnate. Did she assume just because he was a football player he didn't know how to read? Granted he _hadn't_ known how to say the stupid word, but her teaching him the correct pronunciation isn't exactly helping him with what the damn word _means._

Seeming to sense she hasn't exactly told him what he wants to know, she frowns, "Don't you know what a trebuchet is?"

Yeah, _of course_he does, he's just enjoying the witty rapport they have going on.

Eyebrows arching incrementally higher, he huffs, letting her know that _no_ he does not.

"Oh, uh," she actually looks a little flustered. "It's an ancient catapult, basically."

_Now you have my attention._

Shifting her backpack on her shoulder, he considers telling her that carrying it with one strap is terrible for your back, but doesn't, she begins animatedly describing this supposed medieval siege weapon.

It sounds stupid simple to him, a catapult that uses a counterweight to create the momentum and a sling to throw the unwanted delivery. How had he not heard of this before? More importantly, why the hell did Undersee know anything about weaponry? Shouldn't she have been studying fashion or reading a brightly colored magazine with completely bullshit articles in it?

While he's contemplating Madge Undersee's apparently extensive knowledge of ancient battle technology, she's shifted her backpack again, pulled out a notebook.

"It probably won't do much good, but I might as well go to the library. Ms. Poteau's collection probably has a few books from back when trebuchets were cutting edge."

Gale snorts. That was almost funny. Boring, but…funny.

Undersee scoots past him and up to Coach's desk, "Can I go to the library?"

Coach doesn't even look at her, just waves his hand in dismissal.

She must not think Gale is coming, and he would rather not, but that seems unfair.

Before he can follow her out the door, grab his pencil and paper from his desk, Coach calls out and waves him to his desk.

He gives Gale a scrutinizing look, "You don't have to go with her, you know?" Coach shifts in his chair and it lets out a high squeak, "Undersee's an academic overachiever. She'll have this report wrapped up by the end of the week. You just have to stand there."

Judging by the look Coach gives him, he must think he's given Gale a real treat. An easy 'A'.

It rubs Gale the wrong way though. He doesn't like the idea of her doing all the work. It isn't really in his nature to pass assignments off on someone else, even if he's certain she'd be perfectly happy to carry on without him. It also irks him that Coach would think Gale wouldn't, or possibly _couldn't_, do his own work. He isn't stupid or lazy, he just thinks most things in school are tedious.

Forcing a smile, Gale gives Coach a nod, "Thanks, I think I'll go to the library anyway."

Coach's smile widens, a little knowingly, though what for Gale isn't sure, before again waving his hand and letting Gale leave.

Gale's been in the library exactly twice. Once to pick a book for his freshmen English report the year before and once to return the stupid thing. The librarian is wicked, looks down on the students, they're a nuisance she has to put up with in exchange for getting to cocoon herself with her precious books, and he'd rather not deal with her.

When he walks into the library he instantly sneezes, the stupid books are heavy with dust, alerting the batty old woman he's there.

She juts a finger at him, "No drinks by the books, young man."

With a huff, Gale walks back out and drops his almost entirely full sport drink in the trash.

Slinking past her, he squints around the dimly lit room, searching for Undersee. She can't have gotten far and the room isn't that big, but she's small, it may take some time to find her.

He begins at the edge and works his way back, peaking through the rows of books. Finally, at the backmost shelve, he finally finds her, squinting down at a book that looks like it actually might've been around during a medieval battle.

She must not hear him come up, because she makes a funny little noise, a kind of squeak, when he leans over her back to read what she's so intently focused on.

"Please don't read over my back," she tells him, folding in on herself a little.

Shrugging, some people are just weird like that, he takes the book from her hand, "What'd you find?"

Her mouth tilts down, "Nothing I didn't already know." She tucks that loose strand back behind her ear again, "Since the written section only has to be four pages, though, I really don't need much. It's the citation section that's going to be a pain."

While Gale is still trying to process her saying 'only has to be four pages', emphasis on_only_, she's still carrying on.

"We can go to the public library after school. Unlike our penny pinching school, they actually have computers, so we can get resources there too…"

Gale hands her the book back, "I have football practice after school."

She looks a little annoyed for a moment, her lip puckers and her eyebrows scrunch together. A second later she sighs, "Yeah, figured."

That little flare of annoyance flickers in his chest again. He has to go to practice. Football is his ticket out of this dead end town. His grades aren't bad, they could be better, but even if they were, that isn't what's going to pay his way in life. Just because she's got family money to burn doesn't mean they all have.

Still, he isn't going to put all the work on her, he isn't a slacker and he won't give her reason to say he is. And she seemed to want, maybe even expect him to help her with it, which is a little refreshing. He'd expected her to think along Coach's line, that Gale could ride her pretty little skirt tail to an 'A'.

"I'll come after."

Undersee shakes her head, bites her lip, "No, that's too late."

"I'll be the one hurting for it." He's the one that has to drive home out in the Seam, he'll be the one wasting precious sleep time working on this stupid project, he'll be the one with a cold dinner…

"Yeah, but the library closes before your practice ends."

_Oh._ He hadn't really thought about that.

She shifts her backpack again, scrunches up her nose, "Well, like I said, I won't need much. I can do the research at home if you can't make it to the library. Maybe this weekend we can meet up and figure out what we need to do for the project part?"

Gale would rather spend his weekend fishing or hunting with his dad, Katniss, and her dad, but if meeting Undersee this Saturday meant he didn't have to see her the next then he's all for it. The quicker this stupid assignment ends the better as far as he's concerned.

"Fine by me."

###################################

The next day when Gale flops down into the seat in front of Madge, once again knocking her pencil to the floor, she bites her lips and tries not to snap at him. She just has to get through this stupid assignment then she can go back to napping through Coach Cray's pointless class.

"You, uh, find some stuff?"

Chewing her tongue, Madge pulls her red history folder from her backpack and opens it on the desk, revealing the perfectly typed rough draft of she and Gale's paper. She spins it around so he can see it.

For a second he just stares at it, like he's never seen a report before, then he scowls.

"You wrote it already?"

Madge just arches her eyebrows. Of course she had. It was only four pages, twelve font and double spaced, a bare bones report with all the requirements Coach Cray had lined out: main time period the weapon was used, its basic function, and whether it was still relevant today. Not exactly a challenge.

Gale looks a little more than offended though.

"I could've helped, you know?" He practically growls.

_Ugh._ Boys and their stupid pride.

"The research was practically done with one search and typing isn't exactly a two man job." It hadn't even taken an hour to wrap this joke up. What is his problem? She'd just saved them hours of wasted time they could be using on the main part of the report, the project.

Madge has been partnered with freeloaders before, and she isn't going to let Gale's lack of initiative tank her GPA.

He seems to have a little battle with himself, must be realizing she's moved them one step closer to not having to deal with one another again, weighing his feelings against the prospect of freedom from her. Freedom must win, because he scowls, lets out a little huff, then nods.

"Fine, but you have ask me before you get all report happy again." He glares at her, "I _can_help."

Fixing her face in its most neutral expression, Madge nods, "Gale, we have two weeks to get this report done, and I've just wrapped up half of it." _The mind numbing half._She can feel the heat rising in her cheeks as he stares at her. "It isn't that I didn't think you could do it, but I figured if we got the boring part out of the way we could move on to the fun stuff."

His eyebrows slowly arch up and his mouth flattens into a thin line. Clearly he doesn't see any fun in the foreseeable future, at least not as far as this report is concerned.

Hoping to appeal to the destructive side of him, Mr. Abernathy assures her all boys have one, Madge pulls out the sloppy sketch she'd made the night before as she'd skimmed the internet for legitimate resources for their report.

It's not very good, she's definitely no artist, but it gets the point across. She's diagramed it to the best of her abilities, written out to the side what they'll need for the construction…

"Let's face it, Coach doesn't care much about the written portion," she smiles fondly down at her drawing. "So…we're going to build a trebuchet."

############################

Gale fails to see how building a trebuchet is going to be 'fun', especially with Undersee bossing him around.

He understands her reasoning, get the part she feels is easiest out of the way so they can focus on the part that Coach will undoubtedly care about, grade them on. It still annoys him though, that she's carrying on with the project like she's the only one doing anything in their two man group.

When she pulls out the diagram, not as polished as he expects from her, and looks so excited, though, he can't help but feel a little grateful for her eagerness to get going with things. Gale's never exactly enjoyed getting started with school projects or finishing them for that matter, but Undersee's determination infects him just a little. They're ahead of schedule, ahead of probably all the class, and it's only the second day.

It isn't until he squints at her neat, delicate handwriting along the margin that his enthusiasm wavers.

"All this crap is going to cost a lot." As much fun as it would be to make a full sized, well at least a fairly large, French catapult thing, he doesn't have the money to throw into a stupid school project. The lumbar alone just isn't in his price range.

She doesn't even look thrown by his tone, which is nothing short of terse.

"We're going to get it cheap, trust me."

Gale has the feeling she's either going to say her parents are going pony up the money or that they're going to rob a bank, and he's more inclined to commit the robbery than ask Undersee's parents for anything. Instead of either of those options, though, she just smiles.

"I know a place."

Assuming it'll be worth it to miss a meal and watch whatever grand little plan she has fall apart, she's far too sure of herself and it's starting to annoy him, Gale offers to drive her to her supposed 'place' during lunch.

They drive all the way to the edge of the city just North of town, a good ten minute drive, to what looks like some kind of yard sell from hell. It appears to be an old warehouse, but there are kitchen appliances and sofas, toilets and bathtubs, mismatched cabinets, doors, and window in semi-neat rows in the parking lot. Undersee's takes out a tape measure and begins walking purposefully, navigating past the ancient pink and blue toilets and a sink that look like the inside of a seashell, to the back of the lot, around the side of the building, to where assorted lumber is stacked.

It's marked cheap, someone has taken a marker and scribbled numbers on them. It doesn't look like the greatest lumber Gale's ever seen, but it's far from the worst. Undersee begins digging through them, crawling over them a little clumsily, attempting to find pieces to her liking. Each time she finds a candidate she measures it, then either grins or makes a small pout before pushing it to her right or left. Her skirt wraps around her legs, begins working its way up her thighs and she stops several times to push it back down, to Gale's slight disappointment.

"I think these will do," she points to the several on her right when Gale finally walks over to her. "You might want to check them thought. You're probably better with wood than I am."

He can't stop himself, he glares, "Why do you think that?"

Was it because he's poor? She thinks all people like him have some intrinsic knowledge of manual labor?

She straightens up, "Aren't you in woodwork?" Her nose wrinkles up again, "I thought you said you made your mother a table during class the other day…"

Feeling a little foolish for being so defensive, Gale nods. He had said that. Not to her though. "You eaves dropping, Undersee?"

That wayward strand of hair that seems to keep finding its way into her face gets pushed aside again as she rolls her eyes, "What else am I supposed to do during history?" She sighs, "You aren't exactly the quietest person, you know? The entire class got to hear about it right before you told Sal Sanderson about you and some girl up at the Slag Heap."

A flush of heat rises on his face, he's certain he looks like he's tanned an entire summer just standing in the autumn sun. Undersee climbs down from between the wood, just barely manages not to trip when her foot gets caught under one of the boards.

"You measure and make sure they'll work and I'm going to go get the screws and nails."

Annoyed at being bossed around, but pleasantly surprised at the prices marked on the wood, Gale quickly measures them before heading in the direction Undersee had disappeared in.

He finds her sifting carefully through a box of mismatched screws and nails, some bent and some so perfect they might've just come from a brand new box. She's started a little pile by her leg, where she's cross-legged on the cold concrete ground.

"They're having a special today. Fill up a bag for a dollar."

Flopping down beside her, Gale picks up one of the rusty nail, "What is this place?"

Madge doesn't look up, keeps looking through her find, "A restore store." At his confused look she continues, "They sell donated supplies and furniture and use the money to help build homes for families in need in the community." she squints at a nail, "I learned about it when my dad had me help at a build a few years back."

So for a good ten minutes Gale sits with her, digging in what he thinks is probably a tetanus salad, finding respectable and useable pieces. Once they have enough Undersee stands and dusts herself off, holds the bag up with a smile, "There's a dollar."

Before Gale knows what she's doing she's up at the counter, bartering over the prices of the already cheap supplies, it takes less than five minutes and Undersee has the elderly lady at the desk laughing, wheezing and coughing, speaking in an almost unintelligible gibberish. The old woman reaches out and pats Undersee on the shoulder with a warm smile.

"She says she'll give it to us all for half-price," Undersee finally tells Gale as she digs through her purse, pulling out a coin purse. "She has a soft spot for kids."

"I'll pay half," Gale quickly tells her. He doesn't know what half is going to be, not much judging by the prices on the wood, but he's going to pay his part.

Undersee holds up her hand, "You drove here and you're driving back, with all our supplies. I'll pay for the supplies and not pay you for gas, okay?"

Did she read minds or just spend all her time thinking of all the possible ways Gale could get upset with her? It's really annoying, whatever it is.

He doesn't want to say 'okay', he should pay half, but his gas is probably going to cost more than the wood, nails, and screws, and somehow that soothes him. He nods, "Fine."

##########################

Madge has Gale ask the elderly woodshop teacher if they can use the drills, saws, and whatever other tools they'll need for their project during lunch.

"We can get the entire project done without any after school work or weekends if we just skip lunch the next few weeks."

It isn't a hardship on Madge really, Peeta is the only person she really eats with and he's got plenty of people he can go with if she isn't around. Gale on the other hand seems a little put out.

"But it's my lunch…"

His tune changes, though, when the trebuchet quickly starts taking form.

"This is going to be so awesome," he chuckles as he and Madge hoist the arm into place.

She holds it and he shoves a spare bit of pipe, thrown in with rope and the canvas for the sling by old Mags at her resale store, through the axis. When he gets it secured they both step back and admire their handiwork.

It's not pretty, not really, but considering neither one of them has any engineering experience, they think it looks good for their skill level.

"Once you bring the those sandbags and we put them in the counterweight we can take it out in the field behind the Ag parking lot and test it out," Gale tinkers with the arm, raising it up and down, making the weighted end swing gently. "I read those papers you gave me yesterday, and we'll need to fire it off a few times to test the accuracy and the distance."

Madge is fairly confident it'll work. She and Gale had watched dozens of videos of people shooting off trebuchets, to study them, and see how different ones looked. They watched almost too many a couple of times. Madge had been late to English twice, and despite saying that she was learning about the defenses of Minas Tirith, Ms. Trinket didn't care. Which was completely unfair. Madge was combining her classes, crossing her studies, real history and the history of Middle Earth…

"She was a fruit cake last year too," Gale says almost consolingly.

During their lunch sessions Madge lets herself appreciate just how very good looking Gale is. He likes to take off his shirt, despite that it's not even remotely warm, while he works on their project. Chesney would probably drop dead at the sight, and Madge can't say she blames her.

Pressley, who'd ended up with Delly during her hour, a combination that's painful to even _hear_about, just sighs everytime Madge mentions her lunchtime activities during fourth hour.

"How did you get so lucky."

While Madge wouldn't exactly call it _lucky_, getting stuck with Gale Hawthorne is certainly less of a disaster than she thought it would be. Once they got past his lack of organization or as he called it, Madge's obsessive scheduling, things went surprisingly smoothly. They hadn't even argued since the first day.

As their time winds down, Madge finds herself actually dreading the end of the project.

########################

Despite himself, Gale enjoys his lunches with Madge.

He'd groaned out loud, hadn't wanted to spend two weeks' worth of lunches with her, but they'd ended up being…not terrible.

In fact, he was going to miss them when it was over.

The Wednesday before the project is due they very carefully load their weapon, which is unsurprisingly heavy, into the back of Gale's truck, unload it, and set it up in the field.

"Do you get the feeling it's just going to shatter the first time we set it off?" She asks, her lip puckering out slightly, a little enticingly.

She's grown on him, these past two weeks. He'd thought she was a little stuck up, but having to hang out with her during lunch had opened her up. Now he would probably call her a little shy, but with a sharp side to her outwardly sweet nature.

"Ms. Trinket made the grave mistake of making the word 'ossify' her 'Word of the Day' for today," she'd snorted one day before heading to class. "Any bets on whether she picks up on any of the double entendres I've stealthily hidden in my daily prompt?"

Madge Undersee napped during her first hour, which she thought was a waste of time, and had no problem doing her homework from the night before while Coach was 'teaching', but she also loved learning, gaining new knowledge. Madge is almost painfully sweet, she took the time to help a desperate Chesney Shumard, one of the most obnoxious girls Gale has ever met, plot out what she and Sal Sanderson, one of the dimmest boys Gale has ever met, were going to do for their project.

"They got 'hellburners'," she told him the day he'd caught her helping a tearful Chesney during what was supposed to be her English hour. Ms. Trinket had apparently not known what to do with the visibly upset freshman and had let Madge take her to an empty class to calm her down.

"After I looked it up, helped her make an outline, helped her come up with a project, she was better."

"You did all that in an hour?" Gale'd asked her. It shouldn't have surprised him, Madge had a knack for not wasting time.

"I don't like having work hanging over my head. It makes me anxious. Plus, history is fun. I learned all about fire ships with Chesney."

That was another thing he'd learned about Madge, she's an enormous nerd. Not only does she make movie and book reference, but she also has the most bizarre bits of knowledge, more than he'd even expected, locked away in her pretty head. He's almost certain spending lunch with her has taught him more history and literary references than he'd absorbed during his entire freshman year.

She bites her lip and he realizes she's still waiting for an answer.

"Naw," he says quickly, crouching on the dry grass to ready the projectile, a heavily burnt round loaf Madge had supplied.

When he gets the release set he grabs Madge and pulls her with him to a safe distance. He's _fairly_confident nothing will go wrong, but as Madge had said only days before, the guys that made the Titanic were probably confident nothing could go wrong either.

Thus their desire to test it.

Giving the cord a tug, it releases.

A little less gracefully than the videos they'd watched, the bread is flung, arches high into the air, across the sky, landing somewhere out in the trees.

Gale is so thrilled with the success that he almost doesn't notice the pair of cool hands gripping his forearm.

Madge's eyes are squinted shut, her nose is scrunched up, her expression almost pained, as her soft, perfectly filed fingertips squeeze his arm.

"Did you not watch?"

She shakes her head, "No." One of her eyes peaks open, "Did it break?"

Gale can't help it, he starts laughing. She'd put so much effort into planning, gathering, helping build the stupid thing, and she hadn't even watched it's maiden launch.

Both her eye fly open, terrified at what she's going to find.

"It's…all in one piece." Her mouth creeps up into a bright smile, "It didn't break!"

Even though she dresses a little more expensively than the other girls at the school, isn't quite what he's use to, watching her bounce up and down on the balls of her feet and do a funny little dance at the success of their project, he wonders if maybe he doesn't like what she is more than what he's had anyway. She isn't pretty like the girls he's dated before, she's smart and funny and actually able to carry on a conversation, and that makes her beautiful. Which makes having to go back to the way things were that much harder.

############################

Coach Cray loves the trebuchet.

"If I could give you higher than 100% I would."

A silly as the retaliatory report had been, as childish as Madge felt the assigning people to each other seemingly out of spite was, she hadn't been as miserable as she'd expected. Gale had been…pleasant, though she knows that will be coming to as abrupt an end as it had started.

Which is a little disappointing, he could be so much more than just a football player, even though he seems to be convinced that particular path is the only one available to him.

Once the reports and projects are presented, Madge and Gale get to fling an untold number of things into the horizon, simply for Coach Cray's amusement, to be lost in the tree line beyond the field behind the school, things go back to normal.

Madge gets her first hour nap or homework rush-a-thon back, lunch with Peeta, breakfast, and beauty school with Chesney back. Gale gets to go back to rough housing with his friends and his date night recaps, though Madge notices they aren't quite as frequent, not quite as loud as they had been.

Part of her is grateful for that. For some reason the thought of hearing about his exploits turns her stomach.

After a few weeks things settle back to normal, and one too bright, too early morning, as she's drifting into a doze, Madge wonders if maybe Delly will complain again and get another report assigned.

Hopefully Coach Cray lets them keep their partners.


	8. Wanna Hold Your Hand

Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

**Wanna Hold Your Hand**

Gale is pretty sure he's found the entrance to hell, and it's in the mall.

Honestly, how do people shop under these conditions?

The store is too dark, smells like someone dumped gallons of perfume somewhere deep in the bowels of the store, and he's fairly certain at least one of his eardrums has busted. He's read about this kind of psychological torture being carried out during times of war, but a sidewalk sale isn't a combat zone, despite how some of these people are treating it.

He glances at Katniss, "Wish me luck."

"God, Gale, just get in and out," she tells him. She looks a little peaky, a deer caught in the headlights. Shopping is way outside her comfort zone and he appreciated her coming, but so far she's been no help whatsoever.

He could've asked his mother to come, but she would've told his dad and he'd tell Rory and Vick and, god help him, he just can't handle the teasing right now.

He'd done his research, swallowed his pride and asked Peeta 'Golden God of the Wrestling Mat' Mellark what he could do to improve his chances with Madge.

"You could start by getting some actual cologne," he'd told him, not even bothering with hiding his smirk.

"What's wrong with my body spray?" It had served him well since junior high, why change a tried and true staple?

Mellark's eyebrows rose, "You asked for help, that's my advice. That body spay of yours is like kryptonite. By which I mean it'll kill you chances." He eyes Gale up and down, "She won't care much, but try to make yourself look, you know, special. Like you give a shit for once."

Thus Gale's current predicament.

Feeling a bit like he's about to drive into piranha infested water, Gale takes a deep breath and walks in.

He almost turns and walks back out when he sees the price on one of the button up shirts. Someone had put that decimal point in the wrong place, there's no way anyone would pay that much for a flimsy, wrinkled button up shirt.

Moving around the edges, he's able to avoid the bubbly girl hanging out by the ragged looking jean short display. She gets caught by a woman and her daughter and doesn't look happy about it.

He just has to get to the cologne, which Mellark had assured him was Madge's favorite, and get out.

It's in his sight, only a few strides away, when a guy, Gale's age or a little younger, practically jumps in front of him. He's wearing one of the flimsy shirts, a pair of artfully tattered jeans, has too much gel in his hair and a smirk on his lips that just screams 'I'm the biggest prick for at least a ten mile radius'.

"Can I help you find something?"

_No, but you can find someone else to annoy_.

Gale forces a smile, "Nope, just picking up some, uh-"

He reaches around the obnoxious guy, his name tag reads 'Cato', a douchbag name if Gale ever heard one, picks up one of the bottles. He gives it a little glare, "-cologne."

Cato's smirk widens, "Nice choice." His eyes flicker up then down Gale's frame, taking in his less than fashionable jeans and his clearly well worn shirt. "If you're looking to impress someone, though, you might want to think about upgrading your look too."

Who exactly did this asshole think he was? What makes him think Gale is trying to-

Damn.

Gritting his teeth, he isn't about to let Cato the asshole know he's hit anywhere near the mark, Gale grinds out another smile. "Not everyone needs expensive crap to get a girl."

Cato snorts, "You'd better hope not."

If Gale weren't certain there were cameras watching every inch of this stupid store he'd have decked him.

Before he knows what he's doing, before he can get a hold of his pride, he's swiping up a some stupidly expensive grey button up, thrusting it at the positively wickedly grinning Cato. "I'll take this."

It's as Cato, smirking to himself on a sale well executed, is ringing him up that Gale realizes what a dumb move he's just made.

An entire paycheck, two weeks with of work, down the drain just to prove he had money, that he really didn't, to some prick working in an over priced store at the mall.

Gale doesn't even bother with a faked smile when Cate hands him the bag with his poor life choices in it, tells him with a smirk to "Have a nice day!"

#######

"I can't believe you paid this much for a shirt," Katniss stares at the receipt. "It makes me feel a little nauseated, actually."

She does look kind of green.

Gale feels sick himself.

He shouldn't have let that jerk goad him into buying something. It burns him, though, when people imply he doesn't have the means, especially when it's people who clearly do have the means doing the implying.

Shooting the gray shirt a dark look, he starts up his truck. It's getting late and he still needs to get Katniss home

#######

Gale gets up early the next morning. He needs the extra time to shave, something he absolutely hates to do. Normally his stubble goes on for two or three days before his mother gives him _the look_ and he has to drag himself to the sink for a round of torture.

Mellark had said to show a little effort though, and if shaving isn't making it apparent that he means business then he doesn't know what will.

He rubs a dab of the cologne on, not so much that it makes him want to gag but enough that surely Madge will notice, then tries to fight his hair into a more presentable state. It takes ten minutes and more hair gel than he's comfortable admitting he even has in his possession, but he finally gets his normally bed headed hair combed down.

When he emerges from the bathroom in his nicest pair of Levi's and his horribly over priced shirt, he nearly trips over a yawning Rory.

"Watch it," Rory mutters before vanishing to begin his morning routine.

He reappears seconds later, back into their bedroom, toothpaste dribbling down his front as he stares at Gale.

"Why you thow dwessed up?"

Vick pops up, squints into the dim light from the hall, over to Gale. He sniffs the air, frowns, "You smell like a girl."

If he didn't have to drive them to school he'd leave right this minute, wait for the first bell in the field house. This day is too fragile to put up with their harassment.

Before they can get their brain working, begin asking him questions he can't drown out with his radio, he leaves, heads for the kitchen.

Big mistake.

His mother has several boxes of Posy's Girl Scout cookies stacked by the door, is staring at them with a little frown creasing her forehead. She looks up at Gale, gives him a faint smile, then turns back to the boxes. His appearance seems to register with her after a second or two and her head snaps to him.

"You look…very nice this morning, Gale."

He grunts in response, grabs the coffee pot and pours himself some in a travel mug.

"It's not picture day is it?"

Gale shakes his head as he takes a sip, burns his tongue, "Damn!"

His mother shoots him a look, plainly telling him to watch his language before she throws out her next question, "Where did you get this shirt?" She eyes it carefully, "It's very nice."

_It better be for what I paid._ He thinks irritably.

She narrows her eyes, "You shaved." Her nose wrinkles, eyebrows rise, "You're wearing cologne." A knowing grin forms on her lips, "Honey, do you have a date for lunch or something."

"No," he says, a tad too quickly. It isn't a lie, he doesn't know if Madge'll say yes, to anything, yet.

It's instantly apparent she knows he isn't being entirely truthful, even though he is.

"What's her name?"

When he doesn't answer, just starts digging through the cabinet for the bread, she laughs.

"Fine, don't tell me. I'll have your brothers-"

He nearly knocks his coffee over he spins so quickly around.

_Not them._

"Look, she's just a girl."

"Gale," she gives him a pained smile, "you don't get dolled up for just some girl."

_I am not dolled up._

It takes some effort not to cross his arms and huff.

After a minute long staring match, Gale finally lets his eyes flicker to the ground. "Her name's Madge."

Her mouth turns down, he can see a glimmer of recognition flare somewhere in the back of her mind, but she just can't place it.

"I did that history project with her. The, uh, catapult, trebuchet, thing…"

In less than a fraction of a second his mother's face lights up. She beams at him, "I_thought_ you liked her. I didn't know the two of you still talked."

They did, but only when he wasn't making a complete and utter ass of himself. Even then it was mostly just idle chatter. Weather. Passing information about Katniss. Boring stuff. He isn't even sure he knows what they'll talk about if she agrees to lunch. His dates don't usually involve much taking, as a general rule.

_Maybe I should rethink this…_

His phone vibrates in his pocket. Checking it, he finds a texts from Katniss.

_Stomach inside out. No school. Good luck._

Great. He'd been planning on using Katniss to talk him up to Madge during lab. Not that it was a fantastic plan, Katniss was about as likely to make him sound repulsive as desirable…maybe this is a blessing in disguise.

_Plan B it is._

He'll have to use his favor. The one he'd earned fixing her car. It feels like a trick, and it is really. How else is he going to get her to give him her undivided attention though?

There's a crash, coming from the direction of his bedroom, Rory and Vick have apparently started their twice weekly morning fight. It always makes him late. Why did hey have to pick today to do this?

His mother sighs, closes her eyes, then her lips tug up at the corners.

"Posy isn't feeling well so do you think you can take these cookies up to the school for her?"

_Is she nuts?_

"There won't be enough room in the truck for the idiots if I have those coo-"

Oh. _Oh._

His mother gives him an overly dramatic sigh. "Your brothers will just have to ride the bus."

That poor bus driver.

Gale eyes the boxes, starts mentally stacking them in his mind. If he puts them all in the passenger seat Madge will have to sit beside him…

His mother is a devious one.

"Sucks to be them," Gale snorts, as he heaves one of the boxes up.

#######

When he's finished shoving the last box into the passenger side of his truck, slammed the door, his mother comes up behind him.

"You look so handsome," she smoothes some invisible creases out of his shirt, straightens his collar. One of her work worn finger reaches up, taps his nose, "Stop looking so grim, smile. You smile and I guarantee you she'll be out here for dinner in no time."

Gal rolls his eyes, "Yeah."

Madge isn't going to be coming to their house until he's got the idiots that share his room good and terrified of saying anything rude while she's around.

First things first, though. He has to actually ask her out.

He glances at his mother.

"Wish me luck."


	9. A Little Help From My Friends

Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

**A Little Help From My Friends**

A/N: I'm putting the approximate times on the college and high school au to try and help with the confusion over the timeline since they're out of order. The years will be Madge's grade, just to keep it simple.

November, Freshman Year

Gale nearly gets beaned in the head with the football. He's just a tad too preoccupied to notice Thom has thrown it to him.

It isn't his fault though. How can they expect him to pay attention to a stupid ball when the girls from the cross country team are trickling by?

It had escaped his attention before, and he hadn't cared much, but their running path, which consisted mostly of the roads around the school, passed the fence that ran along the edge of the football practice field. It's a tantalizing view.

Or at least it is for a short window.

Madge seemed to stay in the middle of the pack. Gale had figured out that she normally trailed the leader, one of the senior girls, by a few minutes. He'd spent the past few weeks, in the wake of their history project, trying to time his water breaks accordingly, give himself another chance to see her during the day.

Watching her run by in those little shorts and mesh top was quickly becoming the highlight of his day, even if it made him a bit of a pervert for doing so.

She'd sped up today, though, and it had almost caused Gale serious bodily injury.

"What're you doing?" Thom yells as he chases down the ball, which has landed in a muddy puddle. He shoots Gale a filthy look, glares at the huffy look Gale shoots back at him, until he realizes what had so distracted his friend.

"Oh god, it's your girlfriend isn't it?" He almost trips over his feet as he jogs to Gale's side.

"She isn't my girlfriend," Gale tells him, a little shortly. She isn't his anything, not even his friend.

"Fine, 'oh god, it's the girl you're stalking, isn't it?'"

Gale snatches the ball from Thom and throws it off. Maybe he'll chase it.

"I'm not stalking her."

Thom smirks, "Oh? Really? What do you call it then? Bird watching?"

"What are you talking about?" Stalking is what creeps do, and Gale is ninety-five percent sure he isn't a creep.

"You think I haven't noticed you just 'happen' to take your water breaks at the same time your little blonde bombshell goes past everyday? And that supposed short-cut you found to the Ag barn? Don't think it escaped my attention that it also takes you past her fourth hour."

He arches his eyebrows, "You've changed the path you take to class just so you can get a glimpse of her, you plan breaks around watching her in short-shorts, and you almost got a concussion because you were enjoying the view." Thom jabs him in the shoulder, "You, my friend, are a stalker."

_Am not._

"You think you're a whole lot smarter than you really are, you know that Thom-ass?" Gale tells his jerk of a friend as Madge and her running shorts are about to vanish over a low hill.

Thom pops into view, cutting off Gale's last fleeting look.

"Oh, please, you might as well tattoo it on your forehead: Jonesing for a piece of Madge Undersee."

While he's not entirely convinced that he's been _that _obvious about liking her, he might've been a little less than stealthy in his attempts to catch whatever glimpses of her he could get. Most people wouldn't have noticed, but as Thom spends a lot of time with him, Gale supposes it was inevitable that he'd pick up on his little crush.

"Fine," Gale grunts. "I like her. A little."

And that's all he'll admit to. Not that he wants to ask her out. Not that he misses talking to her. Just that he likes her.

"Right," Thom rolls his eyes. "A little."

"She's nice to look at," Gale defends himself. It's true. Thom won't argue with that.

"So is Chenille Shumard and you don't go out of your way to watch her play volleyball," Thom says as he wipes some of the mud from the ball across the front of his jersey, smearing the number with a swatch of brown. "Admit it Gale, you had to spend time with a girl without making out with her and now you've, what's it called, 'connected on a deeper level'."

Thom spends too much time watching afternoon talk show psychologists. Gale needs to find an afterschool program for him to enroll in or something.

"I'll 'connect' something with you on a 'deeper level'," Gale mutters.

"Sorry, man, I have a girlfriend." Thom smirks, "And you obviously like blondes now."

It takes a great deal of self-control for Gale not to overturn the water jug on Thom's head.

#######

Despite wanting to throttle him, Gale still gives Thom a ride after school. He really shouldn't have though.

"Maybe we should see if Undersee needs a ride," Thom offers the second he has his seatbelt fastened. He's lucky. If he hadn't Gale's pretty sure he would've pushed him out the passenger side door.

Katniss gives him a confused look, "Madge walks home." Her eyebrows scrunch together, "Plus there isn't room."

For a second it looks like the subject will be dropped, Gale puts the truck in drive and they all jerk in the cab, then Thom shoots Katniss a smirk.

"I bet we could scrunch together _real_ tight." He looks past her, to Gale who is gripping the steering wheel so tightly he's pretty sure his fingers are going to go numb. "Couldn't we Gale?"

Still not catching on to what Thom is so blatantly trying to point out, Katniss frowns, "But why would we? She doesn't live that far, and she runs cross-country, she's a good runner."

Leaning forward, wagging his eyebrows, Thom grins, "Yeah, Gale knows she's a good runner. Dontcha Gale?"

If it weren't for a quite clearly confused Katniss being seated between them, like a human shield, Gale would pummel his idiot friend. He wonders why Gale doesn't tell him things.

"I don't get it," Katniss glares at Thom. "What don't I know?"

"A great many things," Thom waves his hand. "But specifically, that Gale has a thing for Madge Undersee."

For a second she just stares at Thom, Gale can see her trying to piece together things in her head, the social sphere has never exactly been Katniss' area of expertise.

Finally, she nods, "Okay." She turns in the seat, crosses her arms over her chest, narrows her eyes fractionally, "You aren't planning on asking her out, are you?"

Annoyance flares up in him and he cuts her a look, "No."

Not that it's any of her business.

Holding his glare for a few seconds, Katniss finally nods, "Good."

"Why 'good'?" He can do whatever he wants. Maybe he _will_ ask her out.

"Because," Katniss crosses her arms a little tighter around her chest, "she's my friend too."

Gale instantly deflates, his shoulders droop.

It shouldn't shock him that she's a bit hostile to his interest in Madge. Gale hasn't exactly got a sterling track record with girls and Katniss hasn't exactly got that many friends. The thought of one of her small circle taking another for a ride wouldn't set well with her.

For the rest of the ride Thom keeps his fat mouth shut, though he does smirk obnoxiously at Gale when he lets him out of the truck. In retaliation, Gale guns the truck, makes the passenger side door flop, and hits him behind the back of the knees before he has a chance to close it. "Hey!"

When they make it to Katniss' house, just a few roads up from Gale's, she sighs.

She turns in the seat, keeps her eyes down and shifted away from Gale. "Gale…Madge is my friend, or at least more of a friend than most of the other girls. She's nice and…" She makes a pained face, "and you _can_be nice, but not always."

A frustrated little noise comes from somewhere in her chest. Clearly she doesn't like her own explanation.

"You aren't the best with girls, you know? I just…don't want anyone to get hurt."

It's perfectly obvious she thinks Gale would be the one doing the hurting, but he understands. She's watching out for one of the few people she genuinely likes at their stupid school, and Gale gets the impression Madge might need someone looking out for her. She gave up her lunch during their project way too willingly, which is downright appalling to Gale. No one with a normal social life drops the only worthwhile hour of the school day just to do a project.

It's no wonder Katniss likes her.

"I know," Gale finally grunts, scowling at the fuel gauge. He's almost on empty.

Seeming to sense his frustration, though probably unsure if it's with himself or her, Katniss shifts in her seat, fiddles with her backpack.

"Look, just, I don't know," she squints out the front windshield, "grow up a little."

Gale isn't sure what noise comes out of him at that statement.

"Did you just tell me to grow up?"

Rolling her eyes, Katniss makes a huffing noise, "Yeah, I think I did." She scowls at him, "Just because we're in high school doesn't mean you have to act like some jock jerk. Girls aren't around just to be conquests for you."

He almost tells her to back off, that she's out of line, but then he remembers Madge mentioning him talking about taking girls up to the Slag Heap. Heat rises up his face. Madge probably thinks along the same lines as Katniss, even though he's been less active in his dating and has tried, with varying success, to lower his voice when the guys ask him about his exploits.

An unpleasant feeling, a lurching roll, hits his stomach. He's dug this hole, treating girls less than gentlemanly, and even his best friend knows it.

He doesn't want to treat Madge like a conquest. He wants to treat her like a real girlfriend, and for her to like him and talk to him, like she had during their project. Treat _him_ like something more than a good-looking date on a Friday night. If he wants that though, he's going to have to prove that he's not the same 'jock jerk' he's been the past couple of years.

Gale lets out a long sigh. His reputation will need a major revamp before he can even_think_about asking Madge out. Katniss will definitely require it.

The passenger door opens; Gale glances over and sees Katniss sliding out. She turns, adjusts her backpack on her shoulders with a look of deep concentration.

"I-Gale you aren't a bad guy, but you make bad decisions with girls. If you just-I don't know-stop doing what you've been doing, treat her like you treat me maybe, show her the Gale I know, then I think Madge will really like you."

"Okay," he nods, more to himself than her. "I'll work on it."

A small smile, just a slight upturn at the corners of her mouth, flicker across her features and Gale feels the rolling in his stomach slow.

Katniss still thinks he has a chance, despite his reputation. It'll take more than a little effort, but it gives him hope.

The door slams, rattles the window, and Gale settles back in his seat.

At the beginning of the day he'd been admiring Madge from afar, or as Thom called it, stalking, but now he knows what he wants.

It's going to take a lot of work, unlearning all his own bad habits, but if Katniss thinks Madge would give him a chance then what reason is there not to at least try?

A smile, much brighter than the one Katniss had given him, creeps up Gale's face. He's going to get his act together, grow up a little, show Madge the Gale that Katniss knows and thinks she'll like.

In the mean time, he's still taking his water breaks when she jogs by. Maybe he's only ninety percent sure he isn't a creep.


	10. Love Me Tender, extras

Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

**Love Me Tender, extras**

A/N: So this is basically a couple of deleted scene from the beginning of 'Love Me Tender' (the prom chapter). They messed up the flow and tone so I cut them out. I re-read them and worked on them some more, so now they're silly, but they aren't messing up the chapter's tone so that's okay.

April, Sophomore Year 

"Slim pickins," Peeta frowns as he pushes another few dresses out of the way.

He'd driven Madge to the mall the last two weekends to try and help her find something suitable for prom. It was such short notice, though, that almost all of the dresses that were left were either the wrong size or completely hideous.

She was beginning to get discouraged.

"I'm never going to find a dress." She may as well tell Gale she can't go.

"Uh-uh, never say never," Peeta holds up a particularly frilly pink dress. "On second thought…"

Madge groans and collapses onto the little bench outside the dressing room. Not only did she need to get a dress, she had to find someone to do her hair, her makeup, oh god, she needed shoes…

"I'm doomed."

"It's just prom," Peeta plops down beside her. "You'll find a dress, and shoes, and somehow I doubt Gale is going to care if you wear makeup or if you have bed hair."

She wrinkles her nose, "Of course he'd care."

"Nope, don't think so."

She hates it when he acts like he knows something she doesn't. He gets this stupid grin and raises his eyebrows, does a ridiculous dance. It's very annoying.

Madge pushes him with her shoulder, "What do you know?"

He snorts, "He's been making puppy eyes at you for the past year. Everytime something happened and he looked like an ass around you, he looked like someone just punched him in the kidney." Peeta pushes her back, "Guy looks at a girl like that, even when she's disgusting and sweaty, he isn't going to care much about how she looks at prom too much."

Madge feels her face heating up, she's probably as pink as the last dress Peeta had shown her.

She finally looks up at him, mouth twitching to hold back her smile, "You really think so?"

Peeta wraps his arm around her shoulder, "I know so, dork." He sighs, "Why don't we head over to the resell shop? No one's going have looked there and, you never know, some rich girl mighta tossed out something that Cosmo hasn't deemed unwearable this season."

"You read Cosmo?" Why did he read Cosmo?

His cheeks tinge pink, "I took Emmer to the minor emergency a couple of weeks ago when he had that stomach bug. I like to take the quizzes when I'm in waiting rooms."

Madge can't keep the snort from slipping out. "Yeah, sure."

#######

Putting her phone in her back pocket, Gale keeps texting her and it's making her nervous, Madge holds up the final dress. Her last hope.

It's lavender, strapless, a bit itchy, but otherwise as good as she's going to find on such short notice.

"Now I need a strapless bra."

Peeta shoots her a look, his eyebrows rise and his mouth turns down deeply, "A what-less what?"

"Strapless bra." Surely Cosmo had mentioned them.

He shakes his head, "I thought those were a myth. Like unicorns or crotchless panties."

Madge is pretty sure crotchless panties are real, but she has absolutely no desire to discuss women's underwear with Peeta. He'll just have to remain ignorant of all the possibilities that may hide under the clothing of all the girls around him until he can find more informative magazines.

When they get to the women's underwear section Madge tries to send him away.

"I can manage from here. I don't want you to be uncomfortable."

Peeta looks at her like she's grown a second head.

"Uncomfortable? I'm a teenage boy with a legitimate reason to be in the ladies underwear section, I'm so happy right now I could cry."

So as Madge looks through the handful of strapless bras Peeta explores the wide and unknown world of the lingerie section.

He comes back twenty minutes later wearing a red infinity scarf and a pair of cheap looking sunglasses.

"Look, Madge, I'm New York's coolest quadruped!"

She looks him up and down, "Technically, you're a biped."

He gives her a glare over the tops of the glasses, "You're a fun sucker, you know that?"

Her eye flicker up, "Got bored with panties, did you?"

Peeta pushes the sunglasses up into his hair. "It's not as exciting as I'd imagined." He glances around, "Maybe they lose some of their magical properties if there isn't a girl in them."

"Maybe." A little smirk twitches her mouth up, "Though in your case it would only be magic if it were a specific girl, right?"

It's a little annoying how he doesn't even blush at her ribbing.

"What can I say? I'm a man with fine taste." He grins over at her, snatches the bra from her hands. "So this is a strapless bra, huh? Not as amazing as it sounds."

"Give that back," Madge makes to grab it from him.

He dodges her hand, twirls away. "You want it? Come and get it!"

Peeta does a half run, humming the ending to 'Why should I worry', glancing back at Madge as he does so, completely missing the rack of clothes being pushed by one of the women working at the store down the aisle. He plows into it, tangling in the dresses before falling through to the other side.

_We're going to be banned from the mall._

Madge walks around the rack, quickly holds her hand out. Peeta makes a wounded noise, but hands her the bra back.

"I'm going to check out." Before they get security to kick them out and she has to go through the painful process of trying on another round of the awful things at a different store.

"So much for 'street savoir-faire'," Peeta mutters as he tries to untwist one of the sundresses from his legs.

#######

"Gale, honey?"

Gale grunts to his mother from under his truck. It has a rattle and he's isolated the source. He wants it fixed before prom.

"Do you know what color Madge's dress is going to be?"

He didn't. Was he supposed to coordinate or something? No one had told him that.

"No…why?"

His mother sighs, he can almost see her covering her eyes, "So I can get her a corsage."

With one last flick of his wrench, Gale slides himself out from under the truck and sits up on his roller. He points his hand up to the shop table strewn with greasy tools, "Hand me my phone and I'll ask her."

Carefully, his mother reaches into the nest of rags he's hidden his phone in and retrieves it. She tosses it to him with a grimace.

A little smile creeps onto his face as he finds her name, recently his most frequent contact, at the top of his texts. He hadn't thought she would say yes, it was nothing short of a miracle in his mind. Now he texts her everyday, has lunch with her, they're going to a dance that, even though he thinks it's a little stupid, she seems excited about.

After a few minutes she responds. _Haven't got one yet._

"She's still looking."

His mother chuckles, "Alright, she's blonde too, right?"

Gale nods.

"Do you have any preference for the flowers?"

He doesn't. He thinks pinning a silly little bouquet of flowers on Madge is a little…stupid. "Not really."

"Have you got your tux rented?"

He's beginning to think she's playing a game of twenty questions. "Yes, mom."

She gives him a little smile, "I'm just trying to keep you on task." Her smile slips a little, "Would you be okay with your father and I coming over to her house? So we can get pictures too?"

Gale groans internally. He's going to be nervous enough without an audience, and he doubts Madge will want their first official outing to be documented as in depth as his mother is likely to try and make it.

Reluctantly, he sends Madge another text.

It takes her less time to respond this time, it's nearly dinner, so maybe she's eating and waiting for his next message. He should just call her. It's Saturday so he hasn't heard her voice since Friday night…

_That's cool. Or I can come to your house. My parents won't be home._

He frowns. She said her parents weren't home last week either.

Gale flickers his eyes up to his mother before quickly responding.

_No, I want to pick you up._He sighs. _Guess you get to meet my parents._

They'll love her, he already knows that. She's pretty and smart and she dresses better than any of the other girls he's dated, that alone will make his mother happy. She'd called the last 'girlfriend' of his, a leggy brunette they'd run into at the bait and tackle store, a 'bottom feeding floozy'. Still, Madge is a bit reserved, part of the reason he'd had such a hard time asking her out, he's afraid her quietness might put his mother off at least. His dad, who'd met her, already had an affinity for her, had harassed Gale about why he didn't ask the 'pretty blonde car girl' out after he fixed her starter.

"Because she hates me," Gale had told him.

The day Gale had come home and told him he was going to prom with her, his dad had given him the most annoyingly knowing smirk.

His phone vibrates again.

_Great!_ A second text comes a few seconds later._I'm not being sarcastic either._

Gale snorts.

"Madge said that's fine."

His mother smiles down at him before turning to leave. "Hurry up, dear. Dinners waiting."

#######

"When is your girlfriend coming to dinner?" Posy asks for the millionth time as she pushes her peas around on her plate. A few fall off the sides.

_Never._ Gale still needs to prepare Madge for the madness that usually ensues when Rory and Vick get going. She's an only child, all the fighting that goes down between his brothers might be a bit of a shock to her system.

Plus, they were both getting a bit girl-crazy. Rory had already gotten in trouble with some of his friends for making crude jokes and Vick had started staring at cleavage. It might be a while before Gale has Madge ready to deal with two adolescent boys.

"Later," Gale finally tells her, more than a little vaguely.

His father chuckles, "Much later?"

_Decades._

"Well, your father and I get to meet her before they go to dinner," his mother tells them as she picks up a few of Posy's stray peas and puts them back on her plate.

Gale grunts in acknowledgement as his father's eyebrow arch up.

"Oh?" He looks genuinely confused, "You really want us there?"

_Not really._ "Sure. Whatever."

Unlike his mother, Gale's father seems to realize Gale isn't exactly thrilled with his parents tagging along for a photo op. "I don't think that's such a good idea."

The smile that had been on Gale's mother's face slips off, "Why not?"

Gale keeps his head down. Much as he wants his dad to win this sudden discussion, he isn't about to get involved. He can feel his siblings' wide eyes taking in every detail though.

"Do you really think that's the best way to meet the poor girl? When she's nervous and uncomfortable?" One of his hands goes to his neck and starts rubbing at the muscle, "Don't you remember prom? It's enough of a nightmare without parents being there, which yours were." He raises his eyebrows as he looks at her, "I recall that _quite _vividly."

A small grimace flickers on Gale's mother's face. She thinks for a moment before nodding, "You're probably right." Her gaze flickers to Gale, "It just isn't fair her mom and dad will get to see the both of you looking so nice and I won't."

Instilling maximum amounts of guilt in children must be a course they teach all mothers, and Gale's pretty sure his mother must've been at the top of her class.

He glares at his plate. Meeting her gaze isn't an option, he's too close to not having her 'oohing and awwing' over he and Madge to let this opportunity slip through his fingers.

"Madge's parents won't be there either." He spears a carrot, "They're out of town."

Indefinitely, apparently.

His parents exchange a look, a bit concerned, but don't say anything.

"See, Hazelle? You won't be left out."

Gale lets his eyes flicker to his dad.

He's smiling at his wife, willing her to see reason. While Gale is fairly certain it's a hopeless cause, he got his own stubborn streak from her, he can still hope. If anyone can change his mother's mind, it's his dad. It's his super power. He gives her a dopey grin and she's at least fifty percent more likely to listen.

After several tense seconds, his mother sighs, "Fine. We won't go." She shoots Gale a sad look, clearly still sending out guilt-vibes, "But you have to promise me you'll take pictures."

Hard as he tries, Gale can't keep the tiny smile from creeping onto his face as he nods.

#######

"You owe me big, mister."

Gale nods at his dad. He'd just saved him from an awkward meeting.

He could already imagine his snap happy mother, filling up the memory card on the camera they'd gotten her for Christmas with pictures of he and Madge looking sweaty and uncomfortable in the stupid prom getups.

"So," his father begins, picking up various tools, rearranging them on the work bench. "When _do_you plan on letting your poor mother meet the elusive Miss Undersee?"

Gale checks the dipstick in his oil for the tenth time as he considers the question. He finally decides on, "When we figure out how to keep Rory from speaking."

"That far off then?"

A garbled laugh comes out Gale's chest. "I guess we can lock him and Vick in a closet or something."

His dad chuckles, "We aren't that bad."

It gets quiet for a minute before Gale sighs.

"It isn't that I don't want her to meet everyone. It's just that," he frowns down at the engine of his truck, "she's kind of quiet and, let's face it, no one in this family is. We might overwhelm her."

He's spent too much time building up to this point, he doesn't want his rowdy brothers or nosy mother to scare her off.

With a tilt of his head, Gale's dad smiles, "I didn't get the impression she was easy to throw."

_Oh god._ Gale has imagined what dorky as hell things his dad had said to Madge back in the fall when he'd brought them the starter for her car. Probably talked her ear off, and, god help him, told her one of his completely unfunny, corny jokes.

That's the final straw, Madge is never getting to meet any member of his family.


End file.
